Awakening the Swarm
by Guardian54
Summary: Robin is informed by Mom in a certain field that she is the Empress of the Zerg Swarm. Then Grima tries to attack her and her head explodes. The rest is [a very warped] history. WARNING: Tranquil Yandere Grima, Sully's flying spaghetti monsters, Escape Artist Nyan Pegasus, Iron Throne of Ferox, 3 Lucinas, Emmeryn Wins vs. Ground, etc. M rated for gore and sexuality.
1. Mind-Blowing

A/N: Inspired by the IceBite's "The Tactician Overmind", which is on indefinite hiatus 3 chapters in. If this (indefinite hiatus 3 chapters in) sounds vaguely similar to one of my FE fics, no fear, I'll eventually update "Army of One" when I have enough inspiration and ideas. The idea of having the female Morgans drown Robin in a pile of boobs, followed by being assaulted by their non-Robin-related half-siblings/parents because they were trying to argue for their existences seems to me a bit… weak. Meanwhile, being the avatar of the dragon representing and in partial control of death and decay meant Robin survived one of his most embarrassing deaths.

Warning: some body horror and gore will occur regularly through this fic.

 **You know, I'm amazed how almost all these "Become the Overmind" stories on FFN have a young, single male being the protagonist. Either that says a lot about fanfiction authors (I am one of both groups) or no one has paused to think how it would be like if a young man with a family became the Overmind** (I have a thought of a plot for one, where the wife is extremely pragmatic and tells him flat-out eventually that if he wants to get a harem then she wouldn't get jealous, because he holds all the power in their relationship and annoying him would be counterproductive) **, or a young woman for that matter, with or without a family.**

* * *

Chapter 1: Mind-Blowing

 _September 12, Swarm Year 0_

Robin picked at her ear while walking "What?"

 _We said: Greetings, Chosen Overmind._

"Where and who are you?"

 _We are part of you. We have been all your life. We began as one of the contingency pods dispatched from the Zerg Swarm prior to the final battle against Amon. Once we arrived on this world and sent out scouts, you were identified as highly suitable for the purpose of becoming our new Empress, or Overmind if you would prefer that title. The integration was performed while you were still in your mother's womb. We watched you grow, listened as you_ (she had a feeling the voice meant humans in general) _misinterpreted. As the new Empress of the Zerg Swarm, you ended up with an affinity for other psionic entities in general, such as the one your home world calls Grima. We offer our apologies for the pains this has caused you, and have mediated those pains to the limit of our ability without giving away our true form or powers._

"So that's where my resistance to pain came from before they even started trying to train me by torture… I don't get a choice in this matter, I suspect?" She didn't particularly expect one given the voice's claims, and if it was already part of her and had been since she was in the womb… well, it explained her lack of scars at least.

 _No, the Swarm must continue, we have already chosen this path for you. How else would you be fully grown to everyone else's twenty-year-old standards by ten years of age? It was the limit to what could be deemed plausible by your minders even with this so-called "Grima's Blessing". Note that we have performed no visible enhancements to your body yet._

"You mean these 'fun-bags' you gave me, my height, and my strength and magic levels combined do not count as visible enhancements?"

 _Were it solely up to us much of your body would be mostly covered by carapace, your nutrient assimilation so effective that you would pass solid waste at most once a month, and you wouldn't need to even breathe to survive. However, you would require either Creep or sunlight to survive under those conditions, or a supply of Psi-Energy from having at least one Hive transmitting it to you. In the meantime, all we have managed is to install basic subcutaneous and bone weaves and improve upon your basic physiology._

"So, what am I supposed to do? Are there any forces to take control of? How did you even get here anyhow?"

 _We set up a small base at the island south of your current landmass, the same island where the gateway through which we arrived at this world resides. We believe your kind call it the Outrealm Gate. It was from there that we dispatched Overlords to search this world for someone compatible. You were the best candidate, even though you were not yet born, and so we joined you and your mother to us while she slept. By the way, once you have enough control over the Swarm, it will be possible to restore your mother to life, because her soul belonged to the Swarm from the day we assimilated you both. When her body died, her soul joined the consciousness of the Swarm. In this fashion, no Zerg truly dies unless the last Zerg organism perishes._

 _I can get Mom back?_ Robin didn't need to be persuaded any more after learning of THAT. "It's a deal then. I will be this Overmind you want."

 _Excellent. It means the base can start exiting dormancy and maybe expand. Even with your mother's consciousness acting as a pseudo-Cerebrate—A Cerebrate is a lieutenant of the Overmind—for the last five years, we can only control about thirty Zerg organisms, even with the help of Overlords. So far, due to the weak nature of this world's wildlife, we have only very selectively morphed a few Hatcheries, Drones and Overlords, no warrior strains, in preparation for this day, stretching our coverage as far as covertly possible to maximize our daily energy uptake potential. It has been difficult however, for we had to put up lots of signs pretending to be a restricted area, and distance diminishes transmission efficiency greatly without the presence of an Overmind or at least a full-fledged Cerebrate. Unfortunately, your mother's soul does not qualify._

Robin picked at her ears again, despite this voice being inside her head, since the voice had begun changing from a deep bass to a calming, soothing voice she was more familiar with… She must look insane just standing out in an open field like this instead of by the road, but for some reason the reception here was better than by the road and her feet had led her to wander out here… "Uh, Mom, your voice is starting to leak through."

… _I think I messed up on sounding mysterious, sorry, dear… The original contingency pod still lives and thinks just fine, but the intelligence within has to a degree merged with me to grant me the knowledge of the Zerg, while leaving me in charge as it hibernated. I think we might be able to coax its "main body" so to speak into becoming active again, but it said before its hibernation that as a part of a Leviathan's intelligence it would prefer at least a Behemoth to be constructed first. It also freed up one net control slot—_ the idea communicated was that while the entity provided three control points it took up four itself once it handed over guidance of the Swarm— _by hibernating… I'll start getting the base bigger and so on right away now that you're active, Robin! Mama will help as much as she can, even if I can't be there in person for you right… something's happening Robin. INCOMING PSIONIC ATTACK WAVEFORM! SHIELDS DEPLOYIN—_

Robin's mostly human brain fried under the strain of both communicating with the Overlord overhead with minimal Zerg adaptations and the sudden onslaught of Grima's Psionic attack and she stumbled back as it boiled inside her skull. Then her eyes popped out and flew away as the top of her head exploded with a wet tearing noise, blowing the bone plates that formed her cranium apart. Her body fell over backward unceremoniously, the top of her head missing and greyish-pink mush spilling outward over what remained of her hair and the grass.

 _Oh dear… I'll have to fix this. Robin seems to be fine by the Overmind connection, but… oh yes… Excrete Creep on her! Time to do some UPGRADES!_

* * *

 _A hill away (circa 800 meters)…_

Frederick gawked, and so did the two royals he was babysit—AHEM, escorting, yes, that was much more dignified and less likely to get him thumped over the head by Lissa if he slipped up. "What in the name of Naga…" he whispered, mostly to himself.

There were a lot of things that might reasonably be expected to be spotted in the skies above Ylisse. Dragons, wyverns, pegasi, mages who were high (in several senses) using powerful wind tomes (results varied), and even flying spaghetti monsters were all perfectly reasonable. Please note that the last example was observed and documented by Professor Miriel herself after one of Sully's (surely magically enhanced?) cooking attempts. That was just prior to Sumia and Phila's pegasi capturing and eating it to no apparent harmful effect… to date. The jury was still out on whether or not the pegasi were safe to ride, and both the more junior Pegasus knight and the older Falcon knight had been rather upset by the grounding of their bonded pegasi. Phila was transferred to Emmeryn's guard to help take her mind off things as Emmeryn's old (note that her hair color was born that way, so don't joke about her age!) and trusted friend. Sumia had been transferred to the Shepherds where her reasons for joining the Pegasus knights was soon obvious: The girl's legs were less than well-coordinated on the ground.

Now, among the list of things that could be expected in Ylissean airspace, something that resembled a giant purple flying jellyfish with brown streaks and a brown head of some sort was very much absent. Especially not since it seemed to be spewing forth a stream of… for lack of better terms, purple diarrhea. Though given it had a head it likely to have its anus at the other end as opposed to near its head, right? Was it puking? But what could it have eaten to puke purple?

"I wonder if Sully has been allowed near a kitchen again…" Lissa said in wonder. "If they had edible jellyfish in stock, maybe…"

Chrom and Frederick both paled at this heinous idea, swivelling to stare at her, with the royal speaking first in an effort to rescue their collective sanity "For the love of Naga I would hope not!" Besides, if it had been another of Sully's creations, it probably ate something else she made and should be puking rainbows. Stahl had once had the misfortune of doing just that just prior to a skirmish with brigands, and from there had arisen a joke about "TASTE THE RAINBOW" given the visual effect (including in the sense of blinding the bandit leader by hitting him in the face) of the projectile vomiting that had ensued.

"Hey look! It's stopped pooping!" Lissa called, not bothering to point since both the men she was trying to inform were staring at her, until they turned back to see the… thing… cease its apparent diarrhea and float back up, further and further until it disappeared through a cloud.

"We should head over to the crest to see if we can spot the pile of… leavings." Frederick suggested, gesturing to the crest in the road before them, since the thing had been apparently shitting on the other side. There must have been a LOT of crap… so it would be best to take a preliminary investigation now, in case it had something weird in it that poisoned the land or something. They'd had enough experiences with Sully to be wary of that possibility.

"Hopefully the wind doesn't turn at a bad time…" Lissa commented, and both males grimaced. Maribelle had stopped trying to make her hair uncurl and just let it grow—though she rearranged the curls to be more orderly—as of a few months ago, quite a while after the last time she was exposed to Sully's cooking fumes. The result was that she had fabulous drills as her hairstyle without as much effort as one might think, so she was remarkably relaxed about the mauling of her hair given how high-strung she usually was… Also, she sneezed nose hairs out for a whole day because they'd all fallen out inside her nose, but that wasn't the point.

They came to the top of the rise and found the purple puddle rather quickly disappearing, as if it was being absorbed, by a white-haired figure lying in the middle of it. That didn't make sense, where was the volume disappearing to? "Milady, milord, I will check on the body first."

Frederick didn't want Lissa to become closely acquainted with fresh corpses without warning on her first tour as a Shepherd. Surely anyone who'd been shit on so badly had to be dead, by drowning in the shit raining on her if not being suffocated inside the creature's gut—though how she wasn't digested was a good question. The Great Knight mounted his horse, pulled the Silver Lance off where it was slung across his back and urged the mare into a gentle trot, ready to turn back at a moment's notice if something seemed very wrong about the woman. It had to be a woman, despite her apparently extremely tall stature, he could see her breasts pushing her too-short Grimleal robe up rather obviously even when she laid on her back. That was another question he had about this situation, as the Grimleal would cremate their dead and would not travel alone like this. Also, how was she so whole given she probably just exited the creature's digestive tract?

Then he noticed her chest moving up and down. Now, to be clear, Frederick wasn't actually ogling her, despite the fact that she was very attractive-looking in face and in body, he was merely checking for one of the more visible signs of life. Also, given the apparent size of the woman—equal to or slightly taller than him in armor, he estimated—and her proportions he'd have to be blind or looking the other way to NOT notice those mounds moving "She's alive?" He noted in surprise, a bit too loudly it seemed, for his charges came rushing over. "Stay back, just in case she is some sort of spy or assassin!"

"Frederick, I'll draw Falchion and Lissa has her staff out, the woman is just lying there unconscious and you're standing over her with a lance on standby. We are more than safe enough." Chrom said as he and Lissa kept walking, eyeing the disappearing purple stuff. Frederick just sighed at this, while also noting the purple stuff was still disappearing too fast to be soaking into the ground, and it seemed that the woman was absorbing it instead, hmm…

"We really should do something, Chrom… getting shat on by such a creature from such a height can't be healthy." Lissa said.

"Language, Lissa." Frederick said, though he was mostly focused on the odd woman on the ground, not the, ahem, odd (read: usually nuts) girl next to him. He briefly wondered if Lissa was still in the habit of shoving frogs down people's shirts. Hopefully she was, because while venison was fine for Frederick he really hated the taste of bear or wolf, and if they got one on the way back… Even roast frog would taste better… provided Lissa hadn't decided to take this first excursion _too_ seriously and brought any.

"Wasn't this excursion supposed to build character?" Well, there went Frederick's hopes of avoiding Chrom's odd liking for occasionally (read: on average once every other expedition) having some really gamey meats… Hopefully Sully would bring something nice after they left her in the last town hit by brigands to help organize the rebuilding. The rest of Lissa's words were almost an afterthought for Fred. "Everyone I know who has enough character knows how to curse, and besides, everybody poops, there's nothing wrong with using other words for it besides pooping, right? Besides, it saves at least one syllable over the alternatives!"

* * *

Chrom was right, as long as they didn't actually try to attack Robin, Reflet as Robin's mother would not make the Overlord she was watching Robin through take another dump on them. At the current altitude of the Overlord, it would be more than enough to smash the three humans into unconsciousness at least. Of course, with the lip service to physics, it would not hurt her _significantly_ now that Robin had been partially reconstructed to include better, though still hidden, augmentations.

Waking the majority of their current forces, who had been in near-stasis, would still take a while, at least a few days, and without upgrades to the Swarm, overlords were really quite slow and would take days to carry reinforcements over the sea to Robin. In view of this, Reflet contemplated the options she could practically suggest to her daughter for a couple moments. Then she put them aside in favor of psionically yelling at Robin to wake up already! The attack from Grima had been rebuffed, so what was she waiting for?

 _ROBIN! GET UUPPPPPPPPPPPPP!_

Robin's eyelids shot up at her mother's psychic yell, extracting her mind from the Swarm where she'd been trying to regain her bearings after spectating from the Overlord as her body's brain boiled and then exploded. "Huh? Wha—" She caught sight of the lance near her and tensed, recoiling slightly with a squeak. The brown-haired man in armor frowned a bit, but otherwise stayed still.

"There are better places to take a nap than the ground, you know… here, give me your hand." At least the blue-haired guy seemed nice enough, despite having his sword out… a big, scary sword that practically hummed to Robin's senses which were screaming at her to get away Get Away GET AWAY NOW…

The man noticed how her eyes were fixed to his sword and she was practically sweating bullets, shaking in place but not daring to move with Frederick's spear nearby, and took a step back, stowing it, wondering if she was distantly related to some dragon or other, because he'd known even wyverns to have a fear of Falchion. That should be impossible though, there was no way a Grimleal related to Grima would ever be allowed to step out of their fortresses for more than a transfer between locations, especially if female.

There were many reasons Ylisse didn't have many wyvern riders in their army, including a mix of a passive dislike of Falchion when near Ylisstol and shortage of suitable nesting terrain. Sure, a few lived in the various mountains, but very few were domesticated and if you didn't have a few decent squadrons, it was more cost-effective to just stick with pegasi. The specific reasons were many and not relevant at the moment.

"Sorry, I'm really disoriented right now." Robin said once the instinct to flee finally faded enough that she could ignore it in any way other than locking up and forcing herself to not move. It had taken more than a few seconds after the man sheathed his sword.

The blue-haired guy, Chrom, if her information from the, uh, "Overlord" was correct, and presuming her dead mother communicating to her wasn't a hallucination, nodded at her explanation. "That makes sense, you got, uh… let's just call it dumped on by a giant flying purple jellyfish thing for an astonishingly long time." He extended his hand again, and the man with the lance backed off enough for her to grab on and let herself get pulled upright.

"Is the ground further away?" Robin frowned at her own feet for a moment… and recognized that her breasts were not supposed to be so plump even though she had already had a hefty enough bust before now. _Mom must have done something weird to me, made me taller and more appealing… Huh, so my head really did explode after all and it wasn't a hallucination! I guess she must have rebuilt my body somewhat too?_ Then she remembered her manners "Ah, sorry. Thank you Chrom." She looked slightly downward to look the man in the eye.

"How do you know his name?" The man in armor, who was almost her height, asked.

"Well, I heard you guys talking, and… Lissa, right?" The perky young blonde— _Heh, I bet she's perky in all sorts of ways, given her age, so she'd be lots of fun to play with, and she should be actually OLDER than me… Where the hell did that thought come from? Mom, don't tell me you screwed up puberty for me too…_ —nodded at Robin's look over at her "Lissa called him 'Chrom' shortly before I could gather the energy to pry my eyes open and get up, and he said her name too."

It was a little white lie, technically the Overlord had heard it as she was immersed in the Swarm at the time prior to her brain finishing its reboot after being reassembled using Zerg cells. Robin didn't want to think about how exciting and _appetizing_ she'd found the sight (through the Overlord) of her own body with its head blown open. That must be part of the Swarm's instinct to consume dead creatures for "essence", as in genetic information. However, Robin was extremely disturbed by how much the bloodlust spilled over after returning to her human body into sexual lust. She barely managed to keep a lid on it enough to not soak her panties after waking, holding out until she noticed the threats nearby and went to a more survival-oriented mindset.

Come to think of it, all three of the humans who'd so far been only helpful if cautious looked quite delicious, with great untapped genetic potential. While her Swarm was building up on Gate Island, she could certainly afford entertaining these people for a while. Under the current Exalt Emmeryn it was (shockingly generously) not illegal to carry the Brand of the Exalt as a tattoo, but very few would out of respect without enough connections to the royal line. So, it was very likely that the blue-haired man at least was related to the royal house, and to have two escorts with him, one a healer and the other a reliable, cautious knight fit the idea too. This would be a good start for diplomacy with Ylisse, since Robin would really prefer not to fight any wars if possible given the Zerg forms she'd seen were less than aesthetically pleasing by human standards.

"That is astute of you." The armoured man said with an approving nod. "So, would you care to share your name?"

"Robin, unless whatever just happened hit me harder in the head than I thought." _Of course, you'll never even imagine just how hard it actually hit me._ Robin added mentally, amused by the idea.

Chrom frowned, then pushed "So… how hard DID it hit you?"

Robin raised her eyebrows at him "You heard my thought of amusement?" _Mother, you should have explained this in better detail!_

"I guess your mother didn't explain this curious ability to you very well?" Chrom grimaced, before pressing "Well, I'll be direct then… why are you here?"

"Mother died a few years ago in this area, after we fled Plegia. Ever since then I come back to this place with her cloak every year. Admittedly it's a little short on me by now, but I still wander this area for a day each year in memory…" She looked down at where her legs were much breezier than they used to be. Before, she'd be up to the blue-haired man's nose… but she'd shot up a good twenty centimeters with how her mother had improved her body and now had to look down somewhat to look him in the eye.

"Your story doesn't quite add up. You thought of your mother as if you never encountered this problem before, yet your mental voice is so loud that unless it just happened to manifest today after being, uh, shat on by that purple jellyfish thing, you must have had this problem before. You also hid something from us when first speaking to us." The brown-haired armored man said, eyes narrowed.

Robin thought for a moment "You are a worthy companion indeed. My apologies, it is just… some things seem too far-fetched to be believed, and I had no wish to alarm any of you with what might sound like mad ramblings."

"Our line of work kind of requires that we learn about all sorts of odd happenings around Ylisse and ensure they are no threat to the people, so we'd very much rather you simply told us up front." Chrom said.

"A patrol service, I suppose? Very well, telling you won't hurt." Chrom caught the eye-flicker toward his exposed shoulder and his opinion of the stranger went up somewhat more.

There was a soft squishing noise as something popped under Lissa's foot while she was shuffling around. She raised her foot to look at it… and found a deflated eye smeared along the bottom. She could tell it was an eye since the iris was intact, and the lens too "Frederick? Am I seeing things or is this a ruptured eyeball?"

"…That's an eye alright. Fresh too, by the looks of it." The Great Knight said, narrowing his eyes at the white-haired woman before being momentarily distracted by Lissa going nuts.

The three adult-sized humans or human lookalikes in the field proceeded to watch the juvenile run around screaming for about five seconds before Frederick looked to the white-haired woman again. "So, care to explain how we found a fresh eyeball of all things out here? Or why you have an instinctive fear of Falchion? They don't testify well for you given your cloak…"

Robin looked around, before remembering the few things she'd learnt in her brief time as one with the Swarm while her physical body was remade. "I suppose this clearing is as private as anything else, probably better than most… I was originally here in memory of my mother, but then I heard a voice in my head informing me that I am supposedly chosen to be the 'Overmind'. It said that due to improving my affinity from when I was in the womb for this duty of leading the Zerg Swarm, I ended up with an affinity for other psychic beings too, so the Grimleal decided that I would be a good receptacle for their god. That knowledge, and the needs of the Swarm, made my mother eventually escape them with me. She contacted me just now, after I fully matured to what my state without the Swarm would have been like, more or less. I would have only been up to Chrom's nose, I believe, had we met then. Then she… oh right, I didn't clarify it was actually my mother's soul, which had joined the Swarm after her body's death and is currently more or less leading it awaiting my maturation. She shouted something in my head about detecting a Psionic… well, you might call it psychic or just 'mental'… attack of some sort. Then my mind was… somewhere else. It watched from the safety at the center of the Swarm's collective mind, as my head exploded."

Lissa had finally gotten it off her foot and was now staring at the newcomer in awe "That would explain the eyeball… and this other one I found lying in the grass." She held up the soil-dirtied eye by the optic nerve cord sticking out the back.

Robin shrugged, somewhat amazed by her own nonchalance on the matter which had both Chrom and Frederick looking rather pale… or maybe it was the eyeball Lissa was still holding "My eyes blew out around the same time as the top of my head when my brain basically turned to mush and half-vaporized, blowing it open. I saw this all through the safety of that… Overlord, mother called it, up there. It spewed lots of Creep on me to help rebuild me… a bit too much really, since I shot up a whole hand-span in height and in general got a bit, uh, bigger…" She grimaced as she had to push her breasts around to see the ground without bending over. "These things are going to be so inconvenient… well at least being part Zerg I shouldn't get back pains if their abilities at physical enhancement are anything to go by…"

Chrom spoke first, despite this being so far out of his and Frederick's depth that they were basically flailing about blindly. "How are you so… unaffected by this?"

"My memory's still a bit jumbled and synchronizing with my memories stored within the Swarm. And what could I do? I woke up back in my body in the presence of a weapon my instincts told me was dangerous, with another weapon near me ready to attack. Was I to run around in panic at the fact that I had watched as my brain splattered around me and my corpse—there is no point arguing it wasn't a corpse at least briefly—thumped backward onto the ground? I'm glad the Creep cleaned my cloak and all though… I guess it just didn't reach far enough to absorb my eyeballs too before Lissa could step on them. Give it here, I'll recycle the biomass so it doesn't go to waste."

"Is it really yours?" Chrom leaned over and looked carefully at its color, size (iris and the whole thing) and looked at Robin rather closely.

The woman blushed slightly and fidgeted a bit with the belt of her trousers and the chest area of her sweater, muttering "Ah, much better, I swear that was like a corset now that I'm bigger."

"Yeah, it's hers alright, Chrom, stop staring at her so closely!" The blue-haired man grimaced at his sister's words. Lissa dropped the eye into Robin's hand at that.

The white-haired woman absent-mindedly popped it into her mouth before chewing, much to the other three's horror. Then she realized quite what she was doing and went stiff, blinking a couple times before swallowing "Uh, sorry, Zerg instinct to not waste biomass if no one else is using it. I guess the Swarm affected my mind a bit more than I'd thought in my brief time with them just now." She nervously scratched the back of her head and tried to smile. None of the other three looked remotely appeased, and Lissa had taken up hiding behind Frederick at that display, both her and Chrom looking rather nauseated. Chrom was of course no longer nearly as close to her face as he had been a moment ago.

Robin suddenly frowned "The overlord above us reports that it detects fires spreading inside a small town over there." She pointed, before breaking into a "brisk jog", jumping over Frederick's instinctive raise of his lance to block her. The others followed along. "Scanning… brigands… fucking BRIGANDS! I will need to evaluate what happened to my strength and other attributes with this new… growth spurt I suppose I can call it. I was a tactician before this whole Swarm thing, so by your leave I'll go over there and see what I can do against the bandits. Though I can analyze things through the advanced senses of the Overlord over this area now, and give numbers and such to predict the flow of battle, there is nothing quite like getting a feel for one's own abilities in combat. Let them taste what they deserve for their predation of innocents!" It had, after all, been a brigand's poisoned arrow that had eventually felled her mother's mortal body… before Robin went nuts and tore the whole pack then pursuing them to pieces with her bare hands and teeth like the rabid dogs they were.

"Thank you for your help then. We would have gone to the aid of Ylisstol's South Town as soon as we saw the smoke, so thank you for the quick warning via your… Overlord." Chrom shouted as they ran, Robin noticeably opening the distance as she tested her speed before beginning to fall back.

" _Should we advance together or should I go on ahead to assault the brigands first and you three reinforce as able?"_ Robin asked using her mind much faster than she could have spoken _"I don't believe I can pick up any mental broadcasts from you so use words instead."_

"Go on ahead! We must stop the brigands as quickly as possible! Do you have enough equipment?" Chrom shouted at her back as she sped back up.

" _I have a basic Bronze Sword and a Thunder tome, my body, and an Overlord watching my back, it will be more than enough from what I know so far of my new role as leader of the Swarm. These big cloaks hide enough that Frederick's caution was perfectly sensible. I will remember to, ah, not recycle any biomass."_ She shot back mentally as she disappeared over another hill in this terrain of rolling hills, heading for the plume of oily black smoke that was just beginning to manifest from homes being on fire.

"Are you sure letting someone who would eat their own eyeball be first into a fight with civilians about is a great idea, milord?" Frederick said, in a false light tone.

Chrom's reply was a shrug (not exactly obvious given their run) "I know, but we'll need to learn more about her and this Swarm she claims to lead, and if she's both cooperative and willing to help in the meantime, then if it saves more innocents… why not?"

Meanwhile, Robin was contemplating the wisdom of telling someone related to the royal family so much before her Swarm was ready to take on any and all comers just in case. However, she knew that the Ylissean royals were famously relaxed and easy-going. If those two were, as she by now _strongly_ suspected thanks to Intel that was flowing in from the Swarm (hey, she didn't sync it all at once! Not even close in fact!), the prince and princess of the realm, well, Prince Chrom did have a reputation for being an earnest nice guy. The Overlord over Ylisstol had observed many things during its years watching the city and Robin was retrieving the condensed version of the Intel as she sprinted toward the town. She was testing her body's reaction to sprinting compared to her baseline before the changes her mother had just given her, but her mind was contemplating this opportunity for diplomacy. Hopefully being cooperative and friendly would work out, barring instinct-related mishaps like the eye.

* * *

 _A little later…_

"I thought Robin said she wasn't going to 'recycle' any biomass?" Chrom looked at the brigand corpse and the blank-eyed young villager, her skirt torn off, who was still shivering where she was leaned against a merchant cart. She was absolutely covered with blood and bits of flesh, and gave off the horrendous stench of intestinal contents. There was a puddle of vomit next to her, but she seemed to not notice as she stared blankly at the dead brigand.

Frederick examined the ragged bottom edge of the Brigand's torso and his boots (and the remaining chunks of leg still partly encased within) closely "I'm pretty sure this is just the man being hit so hard in the crotch by an overcharged Thunder tome that his entire lower body exploded. Given what he was clearly about to do, I can't pity him. I do pity the maiden though for having to see that."

"I agree." Lissa hissed quietly as she cast the Heal staff's energy forth upon the maiden just in case there were injuries they weren't seeing.

The next brigand they found had his axe slightly stained with blood along the edge, but had been cut most of the way through from the shoulder to the opposite hip and was oozing a mess in the street. The next after that was another wannabe rapist, given how he had his back hacked open enough that his face was squashed to his crotch and his penis was in his mouth, visible with how his pants were down. Whichever victim he'd been after seemed to have managed to run away due to not being quite as scarred for life by the sight before her, or maybe having fled while Robin was hacking the bandit up.

Three more rather messy bandit corpses later they made it to the market square, where Robin was drawing concentrated attention from over a dozen bandits. There was already blood splattered on the various stands and the surrounding store fronts, some from brigands but the majority from unmoving villagers who were either clearly dead or close. The civilian casualties were consistent with axes, while the dead bandits were taken down by swords or magic.

Of course that excluded the bandit they could see over there in a corner of the square who appeared to have had his arms broken far enough to chop himself in the crotch and bleed to death with his own axe. There was also one who seemed to have had his throat torn out by a set of human-sized jaws. Said throat chunk was lying on his lap in his own hands unless Chrom's eyesight was screwed up. Then there was the one Robin was currently focusing on, beating him to death with someone else's severed leg while fending off any other bandit dumb enough to get close with her sword. Apparently Chrom should try harder not to think of exactly how Robin was putting down the bandits. _Why isn't she using her tome…?_ Then he spotted said tome lying on the ground hacked in half near her.

" _Engage those guys trying to sneak around via the produce stands!"_ Robin shouted in their minds.

"So convenient a manner of battlefield communication…" Frederick commented as he dismounted and pulled out his sword and shifted his lance to his left hand. Lances would be awkward to use against the brute power of axes, more so in confined spaces such as between the rows of market stalls, while swords were more nimble… though had much less reach than lances.

" _Lissa, support Chrom more, heal Frederick when he needs it, but Chrom is less experienced and less durable right now."_

"Got it!" The blonde held her staff in both hands like a lance as she advanced behind her brother along the other stand aisle, letting Chrom being fighting with the bandit before them who seemed surprised by their sudden arrival. Meanwhile, Frederick had already made contact with the brigands if the wet sounds of rending flesh and quickly-silenced screams of wounded were any indication.

She ducked briefly to look under the fruit stands, and saw that Frederick was fighting with sword in one hand and lance in the other, engaging his opponents' weapons with one and then stabbing or slashing with the other to damage them and throw them off-balance, then finally striking the killing blow. It was a simplistic way to fight that conserved energy well and was well suited to dealing with brigands, while also efficient in switching styles should the opponent prove more than he appeared.

Lissa had long since decided that if she was to become a true Shepherd then, even as a cleric she needed to learn to take blood eventually, and life soon thereafter at the latest. So, in a moment when Chrom was locked against a brigand, she rotated her hands enough and adjusted her grip such that the spiked end of the admittedly basic Heal staff pointed forward and the charge storage orb was at the back, then stabbed it into the brigand's gut. The bandit gasped and recoiled back from the bloody wound, but in doing so he let go of his axe and Lissa stumbled forward into its likely path.

" _Frederick slam the stands between you, save Lissa!"_ the telepathic shout was not in words, but an overwhelming urge that Frederick almost instantly connected to what he'd just seen in his peripheral vision over the two stands standing between him and the royal siblings. He slammed himself into the stand and sent it careening into Lissa's path while at the same time striking out to slay his current opponent. Lissa's head thumped against the wood of the stall's side just before the falling axe met a melon and sank much of the way through with a fruity thud.

"Ouch!" There was a moment of silence from among the stand aisles until Lissa let out a very small and squeaky "Thanks, Frederick!" It seemed she'd realized she'd almost lost her head from her stumble. Meanwhile, Chrom had recovered from his attempt to swat the axe out of its intercept path to Lissa's neck and gotten a good start on dismembering the half-buried, disarmed and very banged-up bandit smashed between two market stands for having the utter gall to put his sister in such mortal danger. The man was screaming his head off for over half a minute before Chrom finally settled from his frenzy and lopped said head off, with Frederick and Lissa watching out for threats in the surrounding aisles during this mad half-minute.

Robin came over after killing the bandits around her. "Sorry I couldn't get over here in time after seeing the problem through the Overlord… I asked Mother just now and she said most forms of telekinesis, moving things with my mind, would require the Swarm upgrade further, after which I would be able to upgrade my body to have that ability. The best I could do on noticing Lissa's situation was to pretty much try to force Frederick to help" She looked the Great Knight in the eye, wrenching her hungry-looking eyes away from her blood-splattered gesturing hand "sorry about that, though I'm glad I haven't got actual mind-control powers… I get the feeling you'd probably have me locked up if I did."

Frederick shrugged "Well, most likely yes. It is my duty to be wary, after all."

Robin smiled in appreciation of the Great Knight's honesty, then turned to the cleric "Lissa, you should train in the basics of spears before trying to use your staff as one, but it was a good initiative to try to imitate Frederick's fighting style after merely observing through the stand legs. Now come, there are more up ahead. Lissa, you should consider trying all sorts of weapons, for example, that axe in the melon would be a good test to see if you work well with axes or not." She reached out and pulled the axe out, handing it to Lissa, then looked speculatively at the melon before pulling out a coin from somewhere in her coat and grabbing the melon, tearing it to chunks pieces with her hands and eating it, skin and all. "I hope this form of recycling biomass is acceptable to you. At least the stand owner, if he survived, will get something instead of just having to throw the ruined melon away or eat it himself an potentially get sick from whatever germs are on that axe."

"You know of germs?" Chrom asked curiously. It wasn't THAT surprising given how she had said flat-out that she had been someone important to the Grimleal and thus likely well-educated, but bacteria were a discovery made only during the last war by Miriel and her mother. They had also determined that there were other microbes which caused disease, some of which looked and acted like animal cells, but some of which could not usually be seen with microscopes, though they were sometimes visible after infecting a cell. They were some sort of self-replicating toxin which could pass through filters which could catch all bacteria, but which absolutely required something living to reproduce in… a very small parasite, more or less. The people had accepted these new ideas and discoveries, since parasites were something they were familiar with, and for something to be a parasite to single cells it had to be much smaller, right? So it wasn't unreasonable that they couldn't spot it with microscopes so far…

"The Swarm uses many microbes of various types, including viruses, which are the self-replicating micro-parasites you know to exist but have not been able to detect easily yet, in its support arsenal, though I am not yet aware of the specifics. It will be some time before Mother can morph any support strains, even though she can now expand thanks to an Overmind being fully awakened and supporting her. We have no desire to encroach on anyone's territory unless we are invited honestly, we only need a bit more land on Gate Island, or whatever it is you call the island the Outrealm Gate is housed on. It is considered neutral ground between the nations of this world last I studied the treaties… I hope no one minds too much."

"This Swarm of yours initially arrived on this world through the Gate?" Frederick frowned. There were plenty of stories about the Gate, most fantastical. It had been many years since the Gate was last activated after all by anyone or anything except for the regular Anna traffic through it.

"Yes. It was as a contingency before they went to battle against an ancient evil, so that somewhere in existence the Swarm would survive regardless of the outcome. The small base developed from the pod sent out scouts to search for those suitable to lead them, and my mother was the closest to being suitable. So, they affected me while I was in the womb such that I might be their new Overmind. Actually, the term Mom said they used now was Empress, but that's a bit pretentious-sounding to say in public…"

Chrom chuckled at that, and Robin grinned in response. Then the blue-haired man said "Well you certainly seem friendly enough, and your Overlord could easily have done a lot of damage to us simply by dropping that purple gel on us from above the clouds. You should come with us to the capital so that you can talk diplomacy with the Exalt, the ruler of Ylisse."

Robin nodded "That would be ideal, yes."

Chrom smiled at her agreeability "And you could tell us more about your Swarm on the way so that we might best determine how relations should work between us."

"Chrom, I'm amazed! You actually do have the balls to ask to hang out with pretty girls after all!" Lissa cheered, dancing around the two as Robin snorted in laughter and Chrom applied his palm to his reddening face in irritation over his sister's antics.

Robin suddenly stiffened and frowned "It seems the townspeople around the market square are beginning to peek out of hiding… and my Overlord has just spotted the bandit leader and a few of his closer companions to the north across the bridge leaving a house with blood on their hands and refastening their belts. It's time to cut them down like the filth we have already spread upon the ground here! Lissa, heal up Frederick and Chrom's scratches, and your own head too, I'll go on ahead and see how much damage I can do."

"You're not hurt?" Lissa eyed a gash in the cloak questioningly, as it had blood stains around it, while healing the minor bruise on Frederick's cheek from when he'd slammed the cart-stall-thing as hard as he could on short notice.

Robin looked down at it and flexed her arm "Apparently as the Overmind I heal very quickly, from minor injuries at least. Well time to carve up some rapist filth!" she turned and ran off to the north at pretty much horse gallop speeds, leaving the three humans standing there.

"I get the feeling life is about to get a whole lot more, uh, 'Exciting' very soon." Chrom said.

"I would have protested bringing her back to Ylisstol without any restraints and such, but after watching her performance and knowing she is of importance to the Plegians, having her unrestrained would probably be helpful if the Plegians try to steal her back. Besides, I doubt any spy would actually be sent in with such a fantastical story, and if Plegia had enough of those floating 'overlord' beasts they'd probably just destroy our farms instead with them." Frederick said as Lissa bounced around Chrom healing each minor cut and scrape on its own, to get more experience at staff energy channelling.

* * *

They showed up just as the bandit leader was scrabbling backward on his hands and feet toward his flung-away axe. Chrom was first to speak at the sight before them, clearing his throat loudly before saying "Uh, Robin?" Said woman was looking rather mesmerized as she stared at the heart she was holding, a carved-open bandit under her. It was still beating, though no more blood was squirting out.

"SHEPHERDS?" The bandit leader seemed to hesitate for a moment… until he saw Robin open her mouth and bring the heart closer to her blood-splattered mouth "SAVE ME FROM THIS MADWOMAN!"

Robin blinked at him a couple times, then scoffed "You'd think a bandit like you would understand intimidation." She flung the organ at him, and it hit him in the face before he could dodge with a meaty thwack. "I'd be more interested in eating his liver first if I was searching for valuable nutrients, you know!"

The bandit leader seemed to completely lose it, flailing at the blood stuck to his face "Don't listen to her! She ate one of my boys' face off!" It was probably at least partly fake panic, since he'd managed to get to his axe now and scrambled to his feet, crouching and holding his axe defensively. Robin had disarmed him earlier and knocked him away with a kick, but hadn't exploited it, preferring to kill the other bandits first.

The white-haired woman snorted, though the bright red blood coated around the lower half of her face didn't disagree with that accusation "Just because he locked my sword and biting him was the first other weapon that came to mind doesn't mean I liked the taste or texture. I even spat what I took off back out after I finished putting him down! Don't want to mess my diplomacy with these guys up after all." She motioned at the three Ylisseans over her shoulder with a thumb.

Then she turned enough to make it clear she was addressing them "Chrom, finish the bastard off, will you? You need the experience from what I saw of your fighting earlier. Frederick, supervise the fight please." Robin said, then seemed to decide to do something other than stand there over the corpse. She walked away from the corpse over to the river, which despite the presence of a bridge did not have built-up embankments due to the town apparently deciding it liked the river banks enough to still have a working (small) flood plain there. She then crouched down and cupped some water, before using it to wash her face.

The bandit watched her very closely as she scrubbed the blood off "You going to stop me from getting away from that nut?" He ventured.

Chrom shrugged "Given what you were doing before and the fact that she's travelling with us for the time being at least, yes."

"Curses… well, they say a cornered man fights best… let's see if I can take you lot down and get away then." The bandit eyed them carefully. The blue-haired man would probably be able to catch him, the blond girl likely couldn't due to her size, lack of apparent musculature, and that hoop dress, the armored man off his horse would likely be slow enough that he could possibly evade long enough to throw the man off his trail, and if he got his horse he could use alleyways to escape. The only problem was how to tie up the woman long enough to prevent her from running him down almost casually and them probably tearing his head off with her hands if not teeth. He'd have to wound the blue-haired man and the blonde cleric enough to occupy the woman with concern before bolting if he was to have any chance of escaping. So, weighing his options, he attacked like a cornered dog.

* * *

A/N: I know his name is Garrick. However, I didn't deem it important enough to use.

REVIEW!


	2. Please Tell Us of Your Swarm

A/N: This fic currently has my priority/attention because it's a lot more amusing and less research-intensive to write than "The Curse of Beauty", and also less straining than just writing scenes for "Men of Stone" WITHOUT having most of the focus characters seem like Mary Sues (it is like writing a Spider-Man comic without his casual form's dorkiness to balance him).

On Fire Emblem worlds, years are 360 days long and divided into 12 months. Remind me if I forget.

I just took a look through the **StarCraft II campaign units… The Adept has me laughing my ass off. EVERY SINGLE ADEPT IMAGE ON THE WIKI HAS BOOBS AND FEMALE PROTOSS FACIAL STRUCTURE** (slimmer, smoother face). This actually makes perfect sense since if two of the three Protoss hearts are in the (inflexible, as Protoss need not breathe apparently) ribcage then it's perfectly natural to concentrate other vitals there too. For example, psionic artillery emitters (this might explain the bias of the Conclave against female Protoss, they're scared shitless) or, alternatively, youngling nutrient supplement secretion (totally not milk *eye-roll*) given Protoss _absorb their nutrients through their skin_. After all, if you get hit hard enough there to lose both hearts there you're toast anyhow, so why not put other stuff there?

* * *

Chapter 2: Please Tell Us of Your Swarm

Aka "The Exposition Chapter"

 _Ylisstol's South Town (often abbreviated to "South-town", hyphen optional), 12 September, Year 0 of the Swarm_

They were helping put out the fires when Lissa realized quite where her brother's eyes were oriented while he helped in the bucket chain and she was helping heal the wounded. After the bucket chain had managed to finish its task though, and during one of Lissa's breaks, she waved a hand in front of his face. "Chrom! You shouldn't stare at a woman's chest like that!"

"Have you ever watched Miriel run, Lissa?"

"Yes? What of it?"

"Robin's chest is not bouncing the way Miriel bounces, or even how Sumia bounces." Chrom said as Robin plunged the barrel she had into the stream and scooped up enough water, before picking it up and leaving the river. She had thrown off her cloak and everything lower than the shorts she had been wearing under her breeches, and had jumped in to help. It then turned out she could handle whole barrels of water and, well, there she was now, running around with two barrels, one over each shoulder, with little apparent strain. "Ow, ow, what are you doing?"

"My big brother is more perverted than I'd thought, so I'm obligated to pull your cheeks as punishment!" Lissa let go of Chrom's cheeks, then watched Robin run carefully "…Hey, you're right. That's not normal, is it? And… wow, there's a whole bunch of men ogling her."

"I guess her mother's, uh, rebuild, I guess, of her body gave it some improvements." Robin was really quite appealing to look at, in both face and body. Chrom suspected the upgrade Robin had mentioned her mother giving her had helped in ways other than making her taller and giving her bigger breasts, but since he had not seen her face prior to the event he wasn't sure. Then again he doubted the Grimleal would tolerate someone they thought could be a good host for their damned dragon being too ugly…

Robin stopped in front of them after helping with the water "Well, that's all the fires taken care of. How are the wounded, Lissa?"

"Only a few more after I catch my breath."

"Good" Robin nodded in approval, before turning to the blue-haired man who was looking away with some embarrassment. "Frederick should be here soon, he was helping with the last of the fires and should be on his way now." She told Chrom, deciding to not tease him about ogling her since, well, after a good gander through the Overlord far above them, she found her new body quite "likable" enough in her opinion… other than having to lean forward to see her feet.

 _Wait a second, MOM, ARE YOU GIVING ME SOME SORT OF CHARM EFFECT? The men shouldn't be THAT attracted to this body otherwise!_ There was only a giggle from the other side before Robin sighed and thought _As the Overmind I command you to turn off this charm effect that attracts the lust of men!_

Her mother's reply was _Certainly, Overmind… hey, you just pulled rank on me!_

On the other hand, Chrom suddenly found Robin's body a lot less interesting and himself better able to concentrate. "I think I just felt something?"

"Mom was making me radiate an attraction aura." Robin sounded petulant and upset.

Lissa raised her eyebrows, impressed "Wow, swords, magic, hand to hand, and now mind to mind… what can't you do even at your current stage?" She beckoned Robin closer "Well, body to crotch too given that aura your mother made you radiate." She giggled after saying that.

Robin's face turned even paler than her usual as she slowly turned to stare Lissa in the eyes "You mean you felt it too?"

"Yep!" Lissa had chosen for her rebellious teen phase the path of pretending to be perverted and giving her brother and Frederick repeated near heart attacks as she would regularly speak of all sorts of things she really shouldn't as the princess of the realm.

Robin straightened up, tilted her head back, and shouted toward the Overlord "MOM!" There was another mental giggle, followed by a wordless screech of frustration toward the sky. The result was that while the village elders were offering Chrom hospitality they each glanced at least once rather nervously at the possibly insane woman who was travelling with the Shepherds. Now, this wasn't unreasonable given how some of the villagers whispered of seeing an (admittedly poor quality) axe only scratch off a chunk of skin when hitting it at a poor angle, or how her wounds had barely bled before vanishing, so if she went off the wall she might be hard to stop. It was mostly due to how she'd been ranting at the sky, obviously.

* * *

 _En route between South-Town and Ylisstol_

After they left earshot and sight of the village, Chrom asked "Could you tell us more about this Swarm? Such as what we might expect from it?"

"Well, I'll ask Mother how much we can tell you first…" There was a pause "She says to tell you everything she tells me now, and to show you little models too. How should I do that, Mother?" Robin paled suddenly "I can _what_? Why don't you just drop some more from the Overlord for me to model things with if I can't project images mentally yet?" There was another momentary pause as they kept walking "Uh… Mom says that she's not going to waste the bio-energy to drop more Creep from the Overlord while I'm in good enough condition to, uh… make some myself. Creep is that purplish gel you saw before being absorbed into my body, by the way."

"How would you make this gel?" Frederick said.

"Let me turn away for a moment." Robin proceeded to make a pretty good attempt, from what the other three could see, to take off her shirt with the overcoat still on, then gave up and simply held its front edge up with her teeth after pushing it up over her bust. She gave a moan of discomfort as her breasts tightened and discharged Creep at its runniest into her hands, where it went to near-solid state almost immediately under the Overmind's direct manipulation.

"Do you want to be the one to tell her that given we were travelling as a square, both you and Chrom can see just what she's doing at this angle, including the nipple?" Lissa stage-whispered to Frederick, who was startled from his gawking which was only vaguely less astonished than Chrom's look.

Robin finally let her shirt down after collecting enough, the Creep lacing itself between her fingers and hardening to not be dropped by this manoeuvre "I heard that, what else should I have done given I'm still at least under vague suspicion probably? Ask for privacy? Also, I JUST discovered these things are too damned big for the coat to stay at the sides of instead of falling to hang at my sides, ugh…" She frowned as she got more information "Hmm, According to Mom I as the Overmind have the ability to heal people with Creep… only very minor wounds for now though. That will gain strength as I upgrade further. I can also manipulate Creep better than any other Zerg entity, including, if the quantity manipulated is small for now, creating small scale models of Zerg units after Mom projects their data to me. So please put away the embarrassment and look at the models I show you in a moment."

After the others nodded their assent, Robin motioned them to continue down the road. "So long as the Overmind exists, the Swarm cannot be destroyed. So long as any creature the Swarm exists, the Overmind cannot be destroyed. There are a few semi-exceptions that can do a lot of damage, but a large enough disruption using any of those means will likely drive most Zerg to become feral until enough biomass can be amassed and enough Zerg minds exist to create a new Overmind. That version would of course be much more primal and consumptive of worlds than a human who became the Overmind, so I wouldn't recommend it. Your blade there is an example of something that can with enough effort hurt my Psionic presence badly enough to drive me into dormancy and unleash the Zerg in their feral form for quite some time. So I wouldn't recommend stabbing me enough times with it." She said cheerfully.

Chrom snorted, this woman was really quite amusing in the way she treated life so flippantly… then again he supposed after watching his own head explode and then get fixed he'd be more than a little messed up in the head too. "It's not like you're actually hostile."

"Just wait until you see some of the creatures the Swarm fields. I guarantee you that people will end up reporting them as monsters on sighting them if they aren't forewarned."

"You don't seem to be very intent on easing us into understanding your Swarm." Chrom noted.

"That's because I believe in being direct during diplomacy. You sure seem to appreciate it." They grinned at each other, then Robin began to walk backwards so they could all see the purple gel cupped in her hands. "So… the first Zerg strain is the Larva, it resembles something between a centipede and grub." Some of the creep in her hands shaped itself to look like a Larva, and even crawled around a bit to demonstrate. "The Larva normally gives rise to all other mobile strains of Zerg, and a few immobile forms too." The Creep model curled up and turned into an incubating "egg" to demonstrate her point.

"It looked cute." Lissa commented.

"Thanks for the compliment! Now, these eggs vary in size depending on the strain being morphed." The egg broke open to reveal a creature with an ovoid body, two rayed fin-like wings on either side slowly moving up and down, and two pincers at the front "The standard Zerg worker is the Drone, which is morphed from a Larva with the investment of some bio-energy. Its gravity disruption organs provide a very stable ride, and can carry plenty of harvested materials on top of its body or held in its pincers, using its gravity control to make its cargo essentially weightless. The pincers offer it some measure of defence, and its membranous wings allow it to swim through air, more or less. Gravity is the force attracting every object to every other object. For an object as large as a planet, it is very noticeable, and is why objects fall. Objects that do not fall are supported somehow, for example, the way a bird flaps its wings to push against the air." She paused briefly in wonder at this new information her mother was giving her.

"I don't think we should introduce her to Miriel anytime soon." Chrom commented.

"I agree, there would be an interrogation lasting days, most likely." Frederick said morbidly.

"Well, there are plenty of things for the people of this world to discover still… Anyhow, due to my inability to levitate Creep at the moment, which SHOULD be easier than normal telekinesis, which is using my mind to move things in general because it is part of the Swarm, this Drone model is shown with legs to support it as it scuttles around my hand." It was doing exactly that, before it dissolved into the Creep it had been moving on again. "There is also a tactical command and surveillance strain, the Overlord." The Creep morphed to the giant flying jellyfish-like thing the three humans had seen earlier. "It flies using Psionic power, using the helium in its sacs to provide passive buoyancy to save energy when going with the wind or hovering in place. It can also move along the ground on its limbs if it is wounded enough to need to, however, this places great strain on its limbs and usually it dies before that point due to excess damage." The Overlord demonstrated this languid walk for a few steps before the model collapsed back into Creep in her hands.

"These two, three if you count the Larvae, are the only non-combat strains of the Swarm that I presently have access to. There will be others as the Swarm grows and unlocks more of its potential, for it was designed to not overwhelm new Cerebrates all at once with its lessons, to allow each Cerebrate to determine the best combinations for its Brood. Cerebrates function as the sub-commanders of the Overmind, Generals, if you will. I cannot spawn any in the near future, my mother only serves in the hive-mind as a pseudo-Cerebrate for now."

"Very interesting… so how are your combat strains? Also, were the Larva and Drone to scale with the Overlord?" Frederick asked.

"No, Larvae are quite small, like the size of a human adult's leg from hip to toes, and Drones are considerably smaller than Overlords too, their main bodies are a bit longer than your horse, I'd say. Overlords are very large indeed. The only combat strain I currently have access to is the Zergling. It is roughly one meter tall in its current base form." Seeing they didn't quite get the size description as she morphed the Zergling's approximate form from the Creep, she elaborated "I would say you are about one point eight meters tall, Chrom." Her Overlord provided a more precise number through the Swarm, appreciative of this world's base ten numbers as similar to systems the Swarm had contact with in the past, but she didn't voice it. "As the Swarm's efficiency increases through upgrades, depending on the path chosen, Zerglings may get bigger depending on upgrade path choices. Initially, two can spawn from one larva due to their size and simplicity compared to other Zerg strains. With suitable upgrades, Zerglings are capable of weak powered flight to cross obstacles and therefore some basic aerial combat, along with other abilities."

She let the model Zergling dissolve, as its movements were too complex to portray with her current skill "According to Mother, in the history of the Swarm before they came through the Gate, Zerglings regardless of upgrades were typically fielded in large, loose hordes if in the open or small squads in forested or obstacle-ridden terrain. They served in the melee fast-attack role. They are the only warrior strain my Swarm is currently capable of producing, apparently some of the genetic sequences were damaged during the transit and most of the newer strains are temporarily out of reach, so we won't have Roaches like we should, at least, not anytime soon… Regardless, we should be able to field Hydralisks and enhance Overlords with ventral sacs and improved propulsion fairly soon, so that we can get some support over to Ylisse should war break out with Plegia. For many years has the Swarm stored energy for the awakening of their Overmind, or so Mom tells me. She's scrabbling to unlock the base Zerg combat strains as quickly as possible in case those Plegian raids over the border, and the disguised raids on their own people, prompt another war. Are there any questions?"

"What are Roaches and Hydralisks like?" Frederick asked. Robin smiled, because of course he'd ask that…

"Well, Roaches are about two meters tall, Hydralisks are two and a half meters tall but about five and a half long from head to end of tail if they lie down… Uh… let's see… Alright, thanks Mom, got the information." She prodded the Creep to make the rough shape of a Roach, which was basically a moving mound of armor, spines and claws on four legs as far as the three viewers were concerned. "Roaches spit acid at their enemies, acid which is strong enough to eat through essentially anything thanks to how it is weaponized, without harming the roach itself before and during the spitting. Of course, hitting another Roach is a completely different matter since the acid would have been activated. The claws are for close-quarters battle. The Roach is intended to be an early-stage armored breakthrough unit and an inexpensive line-holding unit. However, it is currently not available for me to unlock merely by constructing the requisite structures to support morphing into it."

She dissolved the model and reshaped it to the approximate shape of a base-form Hydralisk, with one scythe per arm "The basic form of the Hydralisk is a fairly slender creature compared to the upgraded versions. It is capable of spitting thirty-centimeter armor-piercing spines at speeds of about seven hundred meters per second in its base form, about twice as fast as the speed of sound. Mom says it is only a fraction of the Hydralisk's potential, but the Swarm will need to upgrade before we can improve it further beyond its basic form. The scythes you see will upgrade to have three blades, for example, to inflict more damage on lightly armored targets and to have spare blades should one break in a heavily armored foe, striking with the smaller two folded back. Of course, 'heavy' by the definitions of the Swarm are well beyond anything on this planet that is made without extremely large amounts of Psionics being used to make it. For example, that sword of yours, if held with enough strength to withstand a Hydralisk's swing, should be able to cut the scythe off due to the immense Psionic power in it." Robin nodded toward Chrom's sword.

"I'm guessing you guys understand looking at these models why I plan on not expanding the Swarm to either mainland unless I can obtain permission first. The peasants would probably riot and think of my Swarm as demons of some sort, just from their appearance. Cute and cuddly isn't a survival mechanism when every sentient race's idea of cuteness differs, while claws, spines, teeth and corrosive substances? Every sentient race can understand those as a big 'STAY AWAY' at the very least if not as tools of subjugation." Robin had a feeling it was actually mostly her mother motor-mouthing due to having no one to talk to for the past several years. So, she voiced her doubts for the benefit of her audience.

"Mom, are you making me blab excessively?" She frowned "Mom says that since I'm her daughter, even though I'm the Overmind I still subconsciously let her have enough sway over me to help her vent a bit after five years of loneliness."

"This must feel like Vaike listening to someone talk to Miriel sometimes, he only really understands half the conversation and has to infer the other half." Lissa said to Chrom, who chuckled.

"I do not mean to be impolite in terms of asking a lady's age, but that would mean you survived on your own as… a pre-teen to teenager for five years around here? I wondered why some of the townspeople seemed to recognize and wave to you or seem vaguely embarrassed when seeing you rant at the sky." Frederick was saying to Robin.

Robin frowned "Yeah, I lived near here for a while, in a hut in the woods. The animals feared me enough to not come near, I didn't know why until today. The townsfolk just thought I was going through puberty and my growth phase over the five years they intermittently saw me, because I'm only ten years old."

Lissa was first to reply, and it was a very predictable "WHAT?"

Robin shrugged "Zerg maturation, even with minimal modification, is a hell of a lot faster than unmodified humans. The Grimleal thought this was due to their god's blessing, which meant I got away with it, barely."

"Mu…" Lissa puffed up her cheeks in annoyance, staring at Robin's curves "I envy you SO much more now…" Then her glance slid sideways to where the men were still reeling from the revelation "…Though I do not envy Freddy or my brother." She grinned, back to her cheerful self.

Chrom groaned "I know what you're going to say, Lissa, something about how we should feel like pedophiles for noting her figure, right? Man, this is even more awkward than hypothetically dealing with relatively young manaketes. You'd look like a pedophile for showing them any affectionate gestures, if the rumors are true…" They would later note the irony in his words given later additions to the Shepherds.

"I'm guessing you are walking backwards without tripping due to having an Overlord overhead." Frederick said to Robin while Chrom was lamenting the two young men having been practically pedophiles for looking at Robin's womanly assets a bit more than strictly necessary.

Please note that Frederick invite those who contest his claim of youth to his "Fitness Regime of Eternal Damnation" (or "FRED") as Lissa coined it. Also, the guy really wasn't old, being Emmeryn's age, only a few years older than Chrom. He'd originally been assigned to mind Lissa, but since he'd done well as a mentor to Chrom too, he'd been basically made steward over both.

Robin simply nodded in response, "Are there any other models I should make? Because I'm not going to let this Creep go to waste."

"I'm guessing you'll drink it?" Chrom said, feeling a bit conflicted over the idea of such an act.

Robin grimaced "I know, I know, it's almost worthy of erotica once you think too hard on where it came from this time. But it would be rude to waste the bio-energy…" She raised her cupped hands to her face and drank it down, not wasting so much as a drop due to the Creep cooperating with its Overmind.

They walked in vaguely awkward silence for the next hours, with only the interruption of Robin pointing out when the Overlord was no longer blocked by a cloud and others noting the speck in the sky. That prompted some questions about how Overlords could see through clouds, and a brief spiel on the electromagnetic spectrum as the Swarm understood it. Chrom's opinion of this interesting lesson was telling Lissa "My sense of dread for when Miriel comes into contact with her is mounting, even Maribelle might be scary if they get into the mechanics of tea and magic, or what she calls Psionics". Robin was mostly talking to Frederick since the Great Knight was a bit more questioning, while Chrom was laid-back enough to only ask questions when he felt it necessary and otherwise let her share her secrets at her own pace.

* * *

 _Shortly before Nightfall, 25 kilometers north of South-Town_

"So we'll make camp just off the road? Isn't that a bit risky in terms of bandits?" Robin asked once Lissa had complained quite enough for them to call it a day.

"We were hunting after that band of brigands for quite a while, and from what we know from the villages, we got all of them." Chrom said. "There aren't any other known brigand bands in the area, the Pegasus Knights got the two other bands closer to the border."

Robin frowned "They left villagers alive to report on them?"

Frederick grimaced "They only ever kill the ones that fight back with real weapons. They're smart enough to understand that acting like nomadic herders is more practical and productive for them than making mountains of skulls."

Robin thought for a bit "I think I understand now… leaving survivors and refugees is more effective at spreading hate of Plegia throughout Ylisse than just slaughtering whole villages and leaving only rumors and hearsay, instead of first-hand accounts by survivors. Where are the Ylissean Army forces countering the brigands crossing the border then?"

Chrom shook his head "The main deterrents for Plegia against war with us are our large Pegasus Knight forces being able to destroy their logistics. Whether it be by land through the mountains between us, which funnels their supply convoys, or by sea by firebombing their ships from high altitude, Plegia would be unable to support a sufficient force should we use scorched earth doctrine to deny them food supplies. After the last war we practically disbanded the Army except for city and town guard forces, the country was too exhausted by the war to be able to afford an army, both in money and in manpower. Our relations with Regna Ferox are also sufficient that they would come down on Plegia should the Plegians attack us."

"So we're stuck with a volunteer force run by the Prince if the conclusions I'm drawing from the Swarm's information is not wrong." Robin prodded while breaking a rather sizable dead branch off a tree with one hand. Frederick shot a glance at her at that as the three gathered firewood.

Chrom raised an eyebrow, surprised at her bluntness despite guessing correctly who he was. "Well, they're right on that one. I presume that's why you were so willing to go along with us for diplomacy?"

"Well, I was initially cooperative just because there was no reason not to be, then once I was fairly sure who you were, I decided that unless you tried to lead me astray somewhere I might as well make the trip with you. Besides, it would certainly make a better impression than the alternative means to get an audience with Emmeryn… which would be to wait a few months and then arrive at Ylisstol's doorstep with a Zerg army. We might not have combat flier strains available yet but I'm fairly sure showing up outside the city walls with something like at least a thousand Hydralisks and a few thousand Zerglings would not make a good first impression in diplomacy."

Chrom grimaced, idly noting that he and Frederick had been grimacing a lot since this woman came into their life. "It most certainly would not."

"So, are we going to go hunt something to eat, or are we going to eat rations?" Robin wondered.

It would not be long before Frederick began making discreet inquiries to Lissa about whether or not she brought any frogs.

* * *

 _Later that night…_

"Something feels off." Chrom said, looking around. Lissa had awoken too, and Frederick was light enough a sleeper that their waking had woken him.

Robin's eyes shot open "Mom just woke me, she said there's some sort of psionic disturbance here, similar to the Outrealm Gate in general nature. It's driven the birds away already. Temporal disturbances too… wait, local gravitic fields are going haywire… expect an earthquake and ground fissures? WHAT?" She jumped aside as the ground cracked under her and split open, forming a deep fissure down to the bedrock.

"A bit earlier warning would have been nice." Chrom shouted while dodging a tree that had toppled from the ground splitting under it.

"Well, the earthquake's short and subsiding quickly, thankfully… but portals are stabilizing in the sky?" Robin looked up as said portals opened and began to glow, before disgorging a number of human-shaped objects around the top levels of the trees.

"Identify yourselves!" Frederick barked at the humanoids who lumbered toward them. The glowing red eyes seemed unnatural for humanoids, and when Robin got a better look at them, she suspected for a moment whether they were infested humans… then she realized they had no Zerg signature either.

"Does Ylisse usually have a living dead problem?" She asked as the fighting began.

"No, we have never seen beasts like these…" Chrom replied as he knocked one of the things back with a shoulder-slam before decapitating it with Falchion, prompting it to dissolve into purple mist. "They behave remarkably like your Creep once you inflict lethal damage to them!"

"Well they're not Zerg or related to us, or I'd feel it! Wait, the Overlord above us is detecting a number of humans coming through the portals and managing to land safely despite the height of the drop via only marginal use of Psionics… I mean, magic. Very impressive!" Robin shouted as they were pressed back by the number of zombies. Something in her screamed that this was intolerable, it should be the Swarm that buried all under a tide of claws and acid…

Suddenly there was a tremendous explosion of noise from behind the zombies that threw many of them off their feet into those ahead of them, allowing Robin's group to push them back again and slay all the nearby zombies while they were still reeling. The Overmind's embodiment gasped in pain as the sheer volume assaulted her ears before her ear canals constricted defensively to cut the sound down to tolerable levels for her sensitive hearing. It was a cacophony that rose from most of a dozen throats, a bellow of utter shock. The words were simple enough… but it was almost absurdly loud and accompanied by a thunderous crash of blades. "WHO ARE YOU?"

"Those swords look like yours." Robin remarked once the dust cleared as they observed the two portal-comers nearest to them who were locked together trying to push through each other. The two just beyond that had also locked their swords and were now kicking at each other. There were another two who had abandoned their pegasi and lances and were yanking at each other's short, puffy twin-tails while shouting in each other's faces. There were a number of others who were killing off the zombies, but those six drew the most attention by far, while the others were mostly just eying the other side nervously…

"Strangely so, because Falchion is a unique sword…" Chrom was frowning while scrutinizing the fighters.

On one side, the three combatants began with a lavender and pink themed person with a black butterfly mask and light brown hair closest to them, wielding a Falchion replica. Then there was a teal-haired woman with long, straight twin-tails tied up by red-and-black ribbons that made the Swarm for some reason associate her look with singing. The last, who was wrestling her opposite number very closely, was a blue-haired girl in Pegasus knight armor.

On the other side there was a red and white themed person who also had a Falchion replica and identical butterfly mask, with bright red hair unlike their opposite number. The twin-tailed woman a bit further away had blue hair that matched the shade of the other side's Pegasus knight. The Pegasus knight on that side had light brown hair like the Falchion-wielder of the other side.

Each clashing pair looked like they could easily have been siblings from what the group of Shepherds could see.

Chrom's response to this situation was fairly simple "WHAT IN THE NAME OF NAGA IS GOING ON HERE? THERE ARE ZOMBIES TO FIGHT!"

Both of the Falchion wielders, plus the blue-haired members among the other two pairs, started at his voice, jumping back to disengage at the same time, prompting their compatriots to break apart too, and the men with them to help untangle the two brawling Pegasus knights. Then the two apparent party leaders said at the same time "Aren't they called Risen instead?"

Chrom frowned "Risen? I can see why they might be called that… and it sure is shorter to write than Zombie and might be less frightening a word to the general public… presuming they don't infect people."

The two party leaders frowned in alarm before asking the other at the same time "Did he just sound analytical like Miriel?" There was an awkward pause "…We'll hash this out later. Clear the Risen now, meet up at Ylisstol, south gate!" Their group charged northward, spreading out and hacking through the Risen in the forest as they went. "You should know that calamitous times are coming, what you saw tonight is but a minor prelude." They said in unison again to the four "locals", both looking a bit shifty and glancing at each other nervously.

The only reason the Shepherds didn't follow to try to figure out what they were doing and where those Falchion replicas came from was the fact that they seemed to be fighting these zombies. That made them consider the subject for enough of a moment for Robin to get an alert from the Overlord still hovering overhead, far above the level of the portals, about a red-haired cavalier and a blue-grey haired archer showing up to the south in a huff. She informed Chrom about this.

She also informed him that the warning the two flat-chested women (according to Overlord analysis) had delivered reeked of "Early Teen Syndrome", also known as "chuunibyou".

* * *

A/N: Yes, that is Hatsune Miku Severa there from one timeline where male Robin had hair color 13. Also, a Sumia-themed Lucina versus a Cordelia-themed one (the second Cynthia has an unstated father)…

I wonder how many people are going to be Robin's pseudo-harem of both men and women (FOR ESSENCE!). So far I'm thinking Sumia (Steelhead ability—yes, same as in Army of One), Cordelia (classified), Tharja (Dark magic, and she's very willing!), Stahl (classified), Olivia (classified), Maribelle (Parasol-Fu for rayed membranes), Libra (classified but obvious) etc.

Expect Robin to get non-combat abilities a la HOTS campaign mode. As a good tactician, she'll see lots of possibilities between the various possible upgrade strains and task Reflet to the job of compromises when possible (NOT "best of both worlds" though). And yes I am aware that canonically Hydralisks by SC2 spit spines at about 1500m/s, I'll chalk that up to upgrades and sequence repairs.

REVIEW!


	3. Meeting the Shepherds

A/N: Cordelia's growths are (HP-STR-MAG-SKL-SPD-LUK-DEF-RES) 90-60-20-60-60-45-45-35 with max modifiers of +1/-1/+2/+2/-1/0/-1 for the latter 7 stats. Sumia's are 75-45-25-70-70-60-30-40, with -2/0/+2/+3/0/-2/+1 max modifiers. The growth rates are why I decided that Sumia-Lucina will talk first. If the Lucinas had been capped then Red Lucina would have pushed Brunette Lucina back (VERY) slowly in their weapon lock, but currently they are pretty much even.

 **Something funny: In my old Supreme Commander/Mass Effect/StarCraft/Halo/etc. crossover universe, I cast the Motherships as a Protoss contingency plan to hide out in every time the Reapers shows up. GUESS WHAT THEY DID IN LEGACY OF THE VOID WITH THE ARK-SHIPS? I swear, I need to stop posting good ideas and start publishing original fiction sometime soon…**

* * *

Chapter 3: Meeting the Shepherds

 _Forest South of Ylisstol, early hours of September 13, Year 0 of the Swarm_

"Naga told you guys she was sending you to a timeline where things will be easier?" The brunette masked woman said to the red-haired one.

"Yes. I just never expected there to be another version of all of us coming along to make it easier by brute force." The redhead grunted as she warded off a Risen's axe before kicking it back and hacking through it.

"Your mother is Cordelia, I presume?"

"Yes, and yours is Sumia."

"Aye."

"Did you notice Robin's look in this timeline?"

The brunette snorted "We ended up in a timeline where he's a woman. Given my version of Robin married Cordelia and yours obviously didn't, a sex change isn't that surprising."

"Why did she have to have such huge knockers? Ugh… I swear, if she marries Dad our counterpart here will end up making both of us feel inadequate."

"Ah, THAT issue… I think you mean 'both of us PUT TOGETHER'."

The redhead sighed "…Sad but true. I'm pretty sure our younger sisters both out-stack both of us put together. I'm guessing you are Lucina like me?"

"Yes… what should we even call each other, Red?"

"I guess I'll call you Grey then?"

"I'll have you know this counts as a subset of brunette!"

"Yes, but Red and Grey are actual first names, gender-neutral ones too. Brown is usually a last name."

Grey nodded "…Accepted then. So, who married who in your first generation Shepherds?"

* * *

A/N: The continent of Ylisse has to be on the order of Estonia to Turkey in terms of physical size in latitude covered to show the sort of climate difference it does, and that's with cold currents cooling Ferox and a mountain range in western Plegia to block water vapor, otherwise we'd be looking at Scandinavia to Egypt. So Ylisse is at MINIMUM the size of France.

* * *

 _Around/In Ylisstol, September 13_

The main reason South Town was named that was due to its _relative_ proximity to Ylisstol. So, it only took about one day's march (about 60 kilometers) to get from South Town to Ylisstol. Ylisse was a fairly sizable country in a fairly sizable continent (though both it and Valm were small compared to the continent of Tellius-Hoshido/Nohr) after all, which meant it wasn't ridiculous to have a typical 30-latitudes desert in southern Plegia while the northern edge of the continent had very nasty winters. Another reason for South Town's name was that it was initially built around a grain collection center for Ylisstol, which had been placed a day away from the city to reduce the clutter and sewage load, and thus reduce risk of disease, in the capital. Due to improvements in sanitation, it no longer needed to serve as such, but was still a major enough traffic hub. Unfortunately, the volume of merchant traffic meant the town guard was severely overworked and occasionally professional brigands (read: Plegian raiding squads) would get into the large town (formerly small city before the huge population drop of the last war) and get away with some things before the Guard could be rallied to assault and dislodge them.

Due to the hurry that they were in, and the fact that Frederick had seem Robin run around at an unburdened horse's speed back in South Town, Robin suggested that Frederick carry Lissa with him on his horse, while Sully hauled Virion and she could piggyback Chrom. Frederick was doubtful up until they actually tried it, though thanks to Chrom's protest he was slung over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. This could be translated to Robin grabbing Chrom and running and the other two being obligated to chase her. The result was that it was still morning by the time they reached Ylisstol, instead of afternoon. Admittedly Chrom had been switched around to being piggybacked a few minutes into the run, on shouted threat of vomiting all over Robin's back, but that was irrelevant besides making sure Frederick was fully clear that Chrom was not being kidnapped.

They came into sight of Ylisstol after cresting another ridge line, spotting the walls of the city and the castle looming within it on a hill. The north wind, bearing the first chills of autumn, carried some of the sounds and smells of the city to them, and Robin took a couple experimental sniffs "Nice city you've got, smells really quite clean too." Something in the Swarm's collective memory said that a city in an age of wooden ships and iron men should not smell so clean.

"We upgraded the sewage facilities after the war. It improved the tourism industry greatly." Frederick said proudly, puffing his chest out and smiling. "Lady Emmeryn also commissioned a number of projects from Professor Miriel's family, including improving the soap industry, non-magical medical fields and introducing a number of more advanced irrigation techniques."

"We know that our sister is 'exalted' in your eyes, Freddy, even without your bragging. I bet you'd like to kneel down before her and worship at her 'temple', huh?" Lissa chirped, prompting Frederick to flush a light pink before going a very bright red as he quite caught up to her implications.

"Lady Lissa, that is most improper!" His voice actually cracked with how high he squeaked it out, and everyone else laughed at this display from the usually serious-faced knight.

Meanwhile, Lissa had pulled her staff off her back "You know, Freddy, if you're going to have a heart attack I can heal you… though you might need to take off your top clothes, and we should really wait until we meet up with Emm so she can get a good look too, so just hold on, alright?"

"That's enough, Lissa. You should be happy Frederick's horse is halfway used to your shoddy attempts at hijacking control. Remember when Sully's stallion protested you by putting its front legs on the wall and shaking until you slid off?"

"Speaking of my horse, guys, I think he's upset that you made Virion ride behind me for such a long march." Sully said as said horse snorted in agreement and began to slow down, panting like Frederick's horse was. "Oh, and be glad you didn't grab his mane to hold on that time, Lissa, princess or no he'd have tossed you if you did that in anything short of an emergency."

Robin looked at the horse with an air of vague disappointment "Fine, we can redistribute some of the weight. Chrom, get on my left shoulder, Virion, on my right, Lissa, switch to Sully's horse. He has less burden thanks to less armor being put over him compared to Frederick's, so Lissa getting on would average it out."

"Got it!" Lissa hopped off of Frederick's horse, then grumbled as her skirt hoops unfolded downward again, grabbing the edge and hauling them back up as she approached Sully's horse which Virion seemed hesitant to get off of for some reason.

Regardless of Virion's questioning and doubts (which ended with Robin picking him up and throwing him over her shoulder without even a grunt of effort at the load—Chrom had long since stopped questioning her strength), they proceeded to rush over to Ylisstol's main south gate. Unfortunately, they seemed to attract a small crowd of gawkers. "Don't know why they're so amazed, those barrels of water were each heavier than either one of you." Robin grumbled as she let the men down at the gate (Virion looked nauseated), having been slowed down to the horses' jogging pace by the additional burden.

Meanwhile, Frederick was lecturing the gate guards' captain for trying to wave them through on appearance and recognition without checking their papers properly first. Then he remembered upon trying to retrieve their papers from his pockets under his armor that Chrom was carrying the papers for this trip. Sully and Lissa had a good laugh at this. They also grinned at each other when they heard the guard captain say to Frederick "Seeing that woman's strength, it makes perfect sense why our Prince might want to recruit her as a Shepherd. The Plegian cloak is a bit dicey though…"

Frederick shook his head slightly, enough or someone who was really paying attention to spot, saying quietly in reply "It was her mother's when the woman took her daughter and fled Plegia, to honor one's parents is righteous, is it not?"

The guard captain inclined his head in respect and deference "Aye, sire. Though as you instructed, I had to note it."

Fredrick cracked a smile. It was always amusing to prod subordinates into turning his instructions back on him, given how many people simply grovelled due to his position and air of intimidation. Perhaps he was where Lissa learned her pranking from (a frightening thought indeed), though admittedly he did wish she was more… subtle about it. Except when it came to dealing with bear or other excessively gamey (e.g. wolf) meat, of course. In those times he wished she brought her favorite pranking tools i.e. frogs. Hell, even hamsters would do, given some of the things he had eaten before to dodge gamey meats…

…Please note that even bear meat left to go bad for a week could not make Frederick sample Sully's cooking. Anyone who suggests that he eat one of Sully's creations instead of gamey meats will experience Frederick's version of a slasher grin and very possibly the reason why Chrom is known to describe him as "only grinning when he brings down the axe". Even Lissa has shied away from such an idea after the first time Frederick looked at her with that maniacal face of someone who had gazed long enough into the abyss that it had begun to shoot out in a torrent from his eyes whenever it was mentioned in his presence.

You have been warned!

"Well, there's Emm out taking a walk." Chrom observed. "I think it was right after her first walk outside the castle that she started secretly planning to upgrade the sewage system. She hung out with Miriel's family a lot after that, working on the designs and such behind Father's back. After Father died and she took the throne she put the plans into action as quickly as possible. It was so fast that the survival rate of wounded soldiers coming home even increased because of the improved sanitation!"

"Wow!" Robin said, watching the slender, beautiful blonde woman walk around greeting the commoners of the city, greeting more than a few shop-owners by name. After she continued down the street out of their sight after waving a greeting to them—one which Chrom and Lissa enthusiastically responded to by waving back—Robin commented "That hair must take a while every few days to keep right… not like my simple twin-tails."

Chrom elected keep his mouth shut about the origin of Emmeryn's current hair drills. She had been elated over the event (no more weekly or more frequent styling required!), so much so that House Themis had to commission the "fume hood" project with only their own money instead of splitting the cost with House Ylisse. Yes, it had been the same incident as Maribelle's drills… and was one of the admittedly many reasons Sully's permanent kitchen ban was a soft ban, basically a joke, instead of a hard rule, _unless she so much as considered weaponizing it_. A treaty had been agreed upon by the three powers of the continent of Ylisse (four if you count the East and West Khans of Ferox as separate) after the last war that Sully's family's cooking never be used in war. It seemed Sully hadn't yet figured out that her brothers were assassinated by elite Plegian formations in the last war because their culinary concoctions had been used to great effect against Plegian cities. Oh how angry the woman who was telling them she would head on ahead to the Shepherds' Barracks would be if she learnt of the fact that Chrom's father had set her brothers up as (successful) bait for the Plegians…

There were too many skeletons in the closet from that war… Chrom shook his head as if to shake the thoughts away, before looking to the woman who'd made him feel vaguely emasculated with how she'd carried him earlier, rushing almost casually past foot traffic that grew denser as they approached the city. "We should go to the castle and wait for Emmeryn, then you can discuss your Swarm with her. If your warrior strains can be fielded in such great numbers as you suggested earlier, we may have to ask for your assistance in dealing with these 'Risen' while we try to figure out why they're appearing and how."

"No problem, it will take some time though, the amount of damage to the genetic databases during transit was quite significant, according to Mother. I will have to collect, uh… 'Essence' as in genetic material, to re-enable many of the abilities and strains of the Swarm."

"You need to collect 'Essence' in the form of genetic material? Sounds perverted to me." Lissa grinned widely.

Robin blushed "Well, _that_ is probably one of the most DNA-dense materials available, but a little blood should be more than enough, I'd think." Then she paled as her mother reminded her in her mind about the ideals of independent technological progress between civilizations "Oh… right, mother reminds me this world hasn't discovered the workings of the genetic code and its materials yet, so keep shush about it until someone does discover it, alright?"

"Mmhmm." That was the response from all three, thinking of Miriel having a nerdgasm over the matter. They _eventually_ managed to navigate through the crowds to the castle, with a mild detour by one of the main market squares so that Robin could look around at ground level. The gate guards took a moment to check their papers (Frederick had drilled these guys on proper procedure enough) before letting them in.

"This is a nice hall." Robin noted, looking around the very tall room. "Built to impress, I see?"

Chrom shrugged "Emm didn't like it much, but the budget in the past decade didn't allow for remodelling of the palace, so…"

"Chrom! Lissa! Welcome home!" Robin found it rather remarkable (once she turned around) how fast Emmeryn was moving even with that huge cloak billowing out behind her.

"Emm!" Lissa met the hug head-on with her own charging embrace.

The sisters patted each other on the back a couple times before Emmeryn looked up at Frederick "Good day to you too, Frederick. How fared you all?"

Chrom answered instead "Well, we shouldn't have any bandit problems for a while. We caught the last band at South Town and wiped them out."

The pale-haired woman with Emmeryn frowned "Forgive me, milord… How did my Pegasus knights manage to miss them if they were attacking such a major target, I wonder… perhaps I need to adjust the search protocols…"

Chrom shook his head "Peace, Phila, I think it's mostly a matter of too much shrubbery taking back the farmlands since the last war and the Southtown Guard being too overworked even just randomly searching all the wagons and such passing through, not an issue with the search methodology." He turned back toward his elder sister "Emm, I'd like to introduce Robin here, she's on a diplomatic mission from a new faction that we have just come into contact with. She helped us fight the brigands shortly after we met, and aided us in the forest against the… uh, undead threat last night."

"It sounds as though Ylisse owes you a debt of gratitude then, Robin. Thank you for your help. Pray tell, what faction are you representing and what would you like to talk about?"

"I represent the Zerg Swarm, somehow being chosen to be its governing intelligence by a complex story. I can recount if you'd like, your Grace…"

Emmeryn could really use a break from the nobles' bickering or the solitude that came with being the ruler of a nation. "Please, do tell."

"Yesterday, I was wandering in the field where years ago my mother had succumbed to a bandit's poisoned arrow, wearing her cloak, this cloak here, when I—right, uh, I almost forgot, it's not a problem wearing a Grimleal cloak in Ylisstol, right?"

Emmeryn smiled "Well, the City Guard did think it curious enough to report to me when the men at the gate saw someone with a Grimleal cloak carrying their prince and another man around on her shoulders while running fast enough to keep alongside Frederick and Sully's horses at a gentle gallop. However, since you were with Chrom, Frederick and Lissa, they assumed you were a Plegian defector. You should have no trouble in Ylisstol except in a few neighborhoods wearing that" She grimaced at this thought "I will assign an appropriate escort if you wish to tour the city as a visiting dignitary. So, you were saying something happened in that field?"

"I heard a voice in my head. I know it sounds insane, but this voice claimed it interfered with me since I was in the womb, so that I could be the Overmind of the Zerg Swarm. I believed it for only one reason: It would explain perfectly the damage resistance and healing that I have had since I can remember, and the fact that I'm just ten years old right now."

Emmeryn drew in a sharp intake of air and her eyes widened to what seemed to be an alarmed stare, which was extremely uncharacteristic of the perpetually calm and settled Exalt. Then she visibly forced herself to calm down and inclined her head, silently prompting Robin to continue.

"It said that due to the Zerg interference, I would test as having high affinity for other psionic entities, so the Grimleal ended up thinking of me as a new host for their psionic entity of choice and thought my fast growth was due to that dragon's aid or something." Robin did not care for worries about revealing that at present. So long as the Swarm existed she was incapable of staying dead, and even if this went sour they could just fly over to other islands by Overlord, abandoning Gate Island if needed. "The voice explained to me that the original Zerg Swarm was marching to battle with their allies against an ancient evil, and had sent out contingency plans in the form of pods, so that the Swarm may survive regardless of the outcome of their struggle. One such pod arrived through the Outrealm Gate on Gate Island, developed a small colony, and sent out scouts to look for a suitable Overmind. My mother was close, so they monitored her and found me better. It said that since she had been assimilated into the Swarm during her pregnancy to ensure I was born suitable, she joined the Swarm's collective consciousness on her body's death. Once the Swarm advanced enough in unlocking its damaged potential, she could be given a new body. I accepted the position of Overmind that it labelled me as at once upon hearing that, for obvious reasons." Robin smiled weakly, hoping the next bit would go over well enough. Emmeryn's smile was sweeter, finding this story heart-warming in a sense.

"While telling me the story, the voice changed its pitch gradually as if it was forgetting to act all dark and ominous. Right after I realized it was Mom's voice and she stared sounding sheepish on me confronting her, she warned of an incoming mental attack and said she was raising mental shields. That was when I was convinced of the Swarm's existence, because my point of view jumbled for a moment before shifting to an Overlord descending from above the clouds. I saw my head explode as my brain turned into boiling goo." Both Emmeryn and Phila's eyebrows shot up at this. "Then Mom made the Overlord pour Creep on me so that it could heal this body back to habitability… she overdid it a bit, I'm about a hand-span taller than I was yesterday morning and a lot plumper because of the amount of Creep she made the Overlord spit out." Emmeryn's eyes glanced to the side to where Lissa was looking down at Robin's words, hands patting at her own chest, and understood what Robin meant with the resigned glance downward. Then the white-haired woman and the blonde resumed eye contact. "An overlord looks like a giant purple flying jellyfish, by the way."

Emmeryn's smile seemed a bit fixed as she pivoted stiffly to her brother. There were few things that could prompt her to break composure, but today she seemed to be running into a number of them, or a number of potential such things "…Chrom, have you been letting Sully's creations loose again? You know there are treaties…"

Chrom sighed "One time I punch holes in the castle wall trying to down one with Falchion and people never let the idea that I'd break absolutely _anything_ , including major treaties, go… No, Emm, she's actually serious, and it looked too coherent and logically made to be one of Sully's culinary adventures. Besides, I would never intentionally let one loose, I'm not THAT much of a dumb jock…"

"That is good. So you were convinced of this Swarm by witnessing an event that should have been fatal. That sounds like a better reason to believe something than most would have for their religions… If your Swarm is as I suspect though, I think you might be in need of more territory to nest or harvest for whatever materials, but at the same time are concerned about the implications, whether it be ethics regarding the materials needed or the appearance of your Swarm?"

Robin nodded "Indeed, Lady Emmeryn, the Swarm has numerous warrior strains which are rather… frightening in appearance, yet necessary to defend our hives. Even our worker strains and larvae look hideous to most humans."

"I see you've been getting more used to the idea of being Overmind since yesterday. You've started speaking of the Swarm in first person now. It's good to see you adapting quickly" Chrom said, just to be friendly.

Robin smiled, appreciating the gesture "Thank you, Chrom."

"Well, I'm sure we can work something out, depending on your Swarm's needs, of course, for I cannot compromise the safety of my people." Emmeryn said.

Robin kept smiling "All the swarm requires are sunlight, rocks and some water, really. Other chemicals are nice and can accelerate the growth of the Swarm, but really all we need is some barren land with sunlight and a water supply, many kilometers… ah, right, this world still mostly uses miles… beneath the surface if necessary."

"Well, Miriel's family has been helping advocate for the Rosannite Metric System to help make conversions between increments easier without doing long multiplication to go from feet to miles… I presume it is in those units that your swarm operates? A 'metre' as they call it is about… this long?" She held her hands out with some hesitation.

Robin looked contemplative at the spacing of the hands "Looks close enough, yeah."

"Interesting… Well, depending on the space requirements of your Swarm, I might be able to find a few islands on the south coast that have been abandoned since the last war that we might be able to negotiate something over. I don't think anyone will invade Gate Island due to the treaties in place regarding it, so long as you don't block access to the Gate for the Anna Convoys. However, to introduce to the people an alien warrior race which even you as their leader claim look frightening at this junction, when we have reports of undead popping up all over the country, may not be the best of ideas."

"We encountered two groups of people who came through the portals with the creatures, who fought against them and seemed to be in some disagreement with each other too." Chrom reported "They called these entities 'Risen'. It might sound a little less frightening than 'undead' or 'Zombies' and is a little shorter too, so it doesn't seem unreasonable that we could adopt that as the official term for the beasts."

Emmeryn hummed before saying "Well, we have not yet established whether they are undead or zombies, or some magical construct or other. I suspect calling them morphs after the tales of Elibe might result in a great spike in heart attacks throughout the continent, so Risen it shall be, I suppose."

Robin had been looking pensive for a moment, before speaking up once more "Your Grace, due to Mother's observations of the state of Ylisse's military, I as Overmind of the Zerg Swarm am willing to offer troops in the form of Zerg warrior strains beginning in about two months or so. They will help keep the roads clear of these undead should they continue appearing, or clear the roads should the roads not be fully cleared of roving bands by the various guard forces and Pegasus knight squadrons by then."

"That would be much appreciated once the initial shock of dealing with the Risen is done with, but for now I think it might be best to ask to see if the Feroxi are willing to lend a hand first, or whether they have their own Risen infestation to deal with. The reports of Risen grow sparser the further north into colder provinces, but…" Emmeryn shrugged.

"So a march of about four hundred kilometers north to the Long Fort at least… a week's march if we keep a steady infantry pace, less if we have enough wagons. Well, since I've been looking to test the strength after my recent upgrade, I can pull one of the wagons and see how fast I can cover the distance from—"

"No, you will not, at least, not for more than one day even if it's a test of endurance. You will need to socialize with the other Shepherds so that they would listen reliably to your instructions. My instructing them only goes so far to avoid minor moments of hesitation." Chrom told her.

Robin pouted, trying her best to look cutesy "Well… okay then."

Frederick spoke up "Forgive me, but as the voice of caution I am obligated to question the idea of getting aid from a race of warlike creatures. Sorry, Robin, but it is my job to be careful."

Robin shook her head with a smile "No offense taken, words mean little, even when coming from the controlling intelligence of a faction. The Swarm, as it was first created, was a scourge among the stars, overrunning and consuming entire worlds, even solar systems, in its path toward the race it was built to destroy. Though it shook off that destiny and was heading off to battle against the malevolent being who created the Swarm, the last we know of the original Swarm, its strains remain mostly warlike in appearance. Beyond the fact that we have not had time to redevelop our strains, cute and cuddly is not a good survival mechanism. Also, if you only really need to conduct diplomacy with one being for the whole Swarm to have conducted diplomacy with you, well… the rest of the Swarm can be basically as ugly as demanded by functionality… and as demanded by scaring anything at first sight, of course."

"It must be difficult to realize that you must lead a race with such a history. To consume worlds…" Emmeryn shook her head at the horror of the thought. "Regardless, your honesty has earned Chrom's faith, and thus mine as well." Robin inclined her head in acknowledgement "But thank you, Frederick, for your caution. Chrom and Lissa are blessed to have so tireless a guardian, I hope they remember to be grateful often enough…"

"Miriel still hasn't gotten back with her analysis regarding whether or not their expressions are gratitude, Your Grace, but occasionally I do perceive something close enough to submit a record for further research." They both chuckled at that. "You had mentioned that reports of the undead-like creatures have been coming in from all over the country?"

Phila nodded in the affirmative, while Emmeryn said "We are about to hold council. Chrom, Frederick, I was hoping you could join us. Robin, you may also be interested since you said you might be able to bring reinforcements to bear?"

"Certainly, though, uh, I might need to take the cloak off, for obvious reasons."

"Aw, I was hoping to show you around the Barracks…" Lissa sighed and kicked at the floor.

"We'll go together Lissa, after this short meeting is finished." Chrom told her before the five taller people there departed.

Lissa was interested in how those pervy old men on the Council would react if Robin actually went around without her coat, though the lack of bounciness would probably make the distraction last shorter as they'd assume it was plate armor under her shirt or something. Although, if she had to squeeze out more of that Creep stuff… well, maybe they'd need a cleric on-site to reduce the numbers of dead old men from heart attacks?

Ah, who was she kidding, given how annoying many of the nobility were—Maribelle's father would be an exception given his wife's temperament and abilities, should he be around Ylisstol today—she would definitely go directly the other way if she heard the old bastards might need a healer soon (unless it was Emm who needed the help). It would hopefully weed out some of the people who kept getting in Emm's way when she was just trying to fix the country. She could probably wheedle the story out of Robin after.

* * *

" _After" as Lissa so eloquently describes it._

The council had gone acceptably, the nobles were agreeable to the proposed name, and though there had been "questionable" looks toward/at Robin throughout the briefing Emmeryn and Chrom gave, they were in sufficient accord. The Shepherds would march toward Regna Ferox the next morning, though Maribelle would have to return to Themis to help the border villages handle the aftermath of the first wave of Risen attacks. They had been terrorized in the past couple years by the handful of Plegian raiding bands that got past the Pegasus knights' patrols, so needed some presence from the nobility to avoid discontent. A national militia recruitment program, essentially rearmament with the large expansions to the various City and Town Guards, was proposed and approved unanimously after some revision and surprisingly short debate.

Now, they were in front of a rather sizable building next to the castle.

"So… this is it?" Robin ventured.

Chrom nodded "This is it, the Shepherds' Barracks."

"Ah, Captain! You've returned! I was… I mean, we were so—" Robin blinked as the woman in question, a Pegasus Knight by her outfit, slipped over a couple papers on the ground and landed on her face and shoulders somehow, her feet flying up almost comically. She picked herself back up right away, as if this was a normal occurrence.

"Sumia! Are you alright? Those boots of yours again?" While Chrom was concerned, Robin was more focused on why the woman's nose wasn't squashed absolutely flat, and why her color palette, including hair, matched one of the Falchion-users from the forest exactly.

"No! I mean, yes! I mean..." The woman sighed after stumbling over her words and blushing bright red.

Robin looked at the boots, after setting the face problem aside for now "Why do you wear high heels as a warrior?"

Sumia blinked, wasn't it common sense why Pegasus knights commonly wore high heels? "They are harder to knock off thanks to stockings and garters essentially strapping them all the way to my hips." She turned a foot sideways so Robin could see how the "stockings" strapped around the bottom of the boots "They also wedge tighter into the stirrups of pegasi and catch easier, which is important for not being thrown off when being buffeted by wind magic."

Robin nodded appreciatively, being able to suss out the rest of the outfit's utility on her own. The chest plate was obvious, the shoulder guards were to prevent being unable to use a weapon due to injury to the upper arm or shoulder, and the leather armor over the back and belly were to at least blunt blows without losing too much in weight. There was also a shield almost the full size of the woman's back strapped across said back in the event she needed it. The only question was the lack of a helmet, but for vision… and for something to reach far enough in the sky to actually hit… well, a helmet with this world's technology would often be less than effective anyhow. "Thank you for enlightening me."

"My pleasure… Robin?" Sumia ventured, and got a nod in response. "Lissa told us about you."

"The Vaike wants to arm-wrestle you if Lissa's story about you carrying Chrom and Virion on your shoulders while running to the city are true." A blonde, rough-looking man carrying an axe on his back spoke up rather loudly at that.

Robin looked around, blinking as her eyes ran over a man in heavy plate armor who practically radiated an aura of stealth and inconspicuousness "Who's 'the Vaike'?"

"Me, of course. Given the lessons I've been giving on axe use to the City Guard recruits lately though, you should call me 'Teach' these days." He puffed out his chest proudly.

"Alright, alright, listen, everyone. In the morning, we will march for Regna Ferox. According to reports, they shouldn't have nearly as much of a vapor zombie problem—Oh, right, we decided to call them Risen instead—as we are having as Risen apparently don't like the cold very much. Typically, the Exalt would request such aid in person, but given recent events, the people might worry should Emmeryn suddenly leave the capital. So the task has fallen to us. This mission is strictly voluntary, though I must turn you down, Maribelle, as you need to go back to Themis to help settle things there." The noblewoman nodded in understanding "I would like—"

"I volunteer!" Lissa said before her brother could make any blunders that might sound like favoritism.

"Me too! You'll be needing Teach for such a delicate mission!"

"I'll go as well!" The big man in armor said, though apparently no one noticed him due to his aura. Robin kept staring at him, and he shifted from side to side "…What? I've been here the whole time!"

"I… I, uh…" Sumia was poking her index fingers together nervously.

"Yes, Sumia?"

"It's just… I'm not sure I'm quite ready for a proper mission without my Pegasus yet. I'd probably just get in the way…" The young woman was looking down in dejection.

"Not if we find you something better to wear than those boots for ground combat, right?" Robin suggested cheerily. Everyone rolled their eyes. Apparently they knew something she didn't…

She would learn much later that some of the best known ways to break things on the Ylissean continent were currently listed as asking Chrom to practice his sword-work on it (difficulty varies), getting Sumia to fall onto it (not hard), and asking Sully to include it in her cooking experiments (easy, but risks you being hunted by Plegia, Ferox and Ylisse alike depending on results). These three were in debatable order of destructiveness.

Chrom felt sorry for the accident-prone woman, and reached over to pat her on the shoulder, interpreting the blush as lack of self-confidence. "Even if you don't feel comfortable fighting on the ground yet, you can stay behind the main group, and if a battle occurs, watch and learn? It's your choice, but some lessons can only be learned on the battlefield."

"W… well, if you think it wise, Captain…"

"Just stay by me and you'll be fine." Lissa, Maribelle and Robin were all holding in giggles by this point, while the men present were rolling their eyes, sighing, or in Frederick's case, facepalming behind Chrom's back, wondering where exactly he'd gone wrong in raising the Prince. If not for the way Chrom had ogled Robin back in South Town or how he'd watched intently as she squeezed Creep from her breasts on the road, he'd think that the Prince might have a liking for men. That was less than ideal in a royal, particularly as Chrom was the only royal male left outside extremely distant cadet lines, and due to old cultural values regarding Only Princes…

"Oh, yes! I mean—" Sumia noted the audience's reaction as she perked up far enough to actually note their faces, then immediately backtracked slightly "Yes, sir, I'll do that!

* * *

 _September 15, Swarm Year 0_

After meeting up with Stahl and receiving Intel that Miriel would catch up once she finished her current experiment, they were two days out of Ylisstol when they encountered the zombie-thingies again.

In the meantime, despite the slight interference the Outrealm Gate threw off, Reflet had finally morphed a Spawning Pool by late on the 14th of September, two whole days after the Overmind awakened. It took far longer than it would have under ideal conditions, but the "Primordial Soup Bowl" as Robin had derisively referred to it when she saw it through an Overlord's eyes was at least complete and functional, so now they could crunch some numbers and details for the Hydralisk Den. Just the unlocking process with their current processing capacity took several hours, and the morphing of the structure would take even more time. Apparently the typical Zerg method of time-dilating cell replication to produce units in a very short time didn't work nearly as well on this planet. Less imposing or complex strains, such as everything available to a Hatchery-level Brood, would still only require a day at most to morph from larvae, but it was still very poor compared to what the Swarm remembered…

Then again, the Swarm also remembered Hydralisks being evolved far enough since the days of the First Overmind to require a Lair to spawn. That was deemed unacceptable due to the number of airborne potential threats in this world. Hence, what could be scraped together of the original Hydralisk and Hydralisk Den templates had been chosen to be salvaged while the more advanced version's template fragments were stored away for later perusal and repair.

Back on the highway between Ylisstol and the Feroxi capital, known commonly as the North Road, Chrom was listening to Robin's description of the Risen the overlord above them had spotted.

"So the Risen have spread this far already… Everyone, remember what we're up against. These creatures do not feel pain, so strike to kill or at least take off a limb or two to damage them!"

Vaike was first to express his opinion, which was easy to say as axes were better than lances or swords at hacking big chunks off of things. "Ha! They'll remember ME once I drive my axe into… where's my axe?" His voice rose in pitch toward the end of his exclamation.

"The Overlord was busy looking farther ahead on my instructions, so it didn't notice you drop it until just now when I told it to look around. It's about a kilometer back, around three-fifth of one of your miles, too far to retrieve conveniently. Start getting one from the reserves in the convoy… wait, a reddish-haired woman with a pointed hat and mage robes on a horse just spotted it and is picking it up."

"If she's wearing glasses then yes, that's Miriel." Chrom said, eying the oncoming Risen as everyone prepared to fight.

"Yes. Vaike, keep to the rear until Miriel gets your axe here, unpacking the weapons from the convoy would take too long and tie up too many hands." Robin had taken charge almost instinctively by the time she noticed, it was probably part and parcel of being the Overmind… "Sumia, is that a Luna Lance I see?"

"Well, I was crafting one, I haven't had the chance to get the appropriate enchantments on it yet, so it just works as a Steel Lance does for now." Sumia said.

"Shuck your riding heels and get in line where Vaike was. Virion, begin firing at the enemy the moment they're in range."

The brunette was very surprised by the order to go into a fight without shoes "What?" Robin gave a low growl in her throat to remind Sumia who was issuing orders, and Chrom nodded to confirm.

Virion on the other hand was much more cooperative, and even saluted. "Of course, madam!"

Sumia began unbuckling her garters right after seeing Chrom's confirmation. "I mean… understood!" It took a few moments of hopping around and leaning on her lance, but eventually she pulled the stockings down far enough to get her riding boots disengaged from their straps and off her feet. Then she got in line, somehow managing to not trip over the ground despite being klutzy. "Odd, my feet don't hurt at all on the pebbles and branches…"

Robin, who'd turned away to organize the rest of the defence, looked back "I meant cut the heels off, you'd tear your feet to shreds like that!"

Sumia startled a bit at the clipped tone "Well, um, I don't feel anything really… it's bumpy, but still very okay…"

Robin changed to a gentler voice since it seemed the young woman was emotionally delicate "That's weird… we'll test it later, for now just get ready to fight!" Robin drew her sword after casting from her Fire tome a few times to weaken the incoming enemy, since it seemed fire didn't do much against undead things unless you completely burnt them away. Well, it set them on fire, so they'd probably burn out in time, but the flames for now only enhanced the enemy's damage potential.

The ensuing battle had them first meet the initial Risen rush toward them with almost amusing ease as everyone in the battle line, namely Robin, Sumia, Chrom and Kellam hacked the shambling Revenants to pieces or in Sumia and Kellam's case seemed to strike some sort of core inside their torsos with their lances. Frederick, Sully and Stahl, who were held in reserve on the flanks, didn't even have to do anything. The only complaint from Robin was… "None of them had a weapon we could grab for Vaike!"

Vaike protested with "Hey, you could have stood behind the line, fired spells, and put me in with your sword!"

Robin looked down at her sword, then up at Vaike "Uh, no, this is a cheap Bronze Sword, you'd probably break it trying to use it like an axe." She shifted her attentions to the crowd in general "The other Risen of this pack haven't noticed us yet, for some reason. The Chief is down the road over the bridge. Chrom, Sully, Sumia, with me, everyone else, hold the bridgehead until we finish hunting down every one of the abominations on this side… Miriel, give Vaike his axe and then be at the back with Virion!"

The just-mentioned redheaded mage-professor spoke up from behind them as she jumped off the horse she'd ridden out on. "So what Prince Chrom told me was true, you really do have those floating beasts our Pegasus knights occasionally reported seeing under your sway and spotting for you… Alternatively, you made a good guess as you expected me to catch up around this time." Vaike was trying to figure out where exactly she pulled his axe from, since it seemed to just appear from within her coat, so he walked around her a couple times while she eyed his behavior almost lazily. Then he remembered some of the experiments she was known to do and decided that he really didn't want to know what else could be under that cloak of hers.

"I'm surprised you're only classified Mage, Professor Miriel. I was expecting Sage classification like Emmeryn." Robin said.

"I am surprised you can tell at a glance, but I have recused myself in the lab with Mother for years, hence my combative abilities have… degraded somewhat. Since I never bothered going through the promotion process, either by learning to use staves the slow way or expending a Master Seal for quick study, I cannot lay claim to the Sage classification." Miriel explained.

"Interesting… Alright then, bridge team, move out. Sumia, Chrom, Sully, Miriel, follow me as the mobile team! I will communicate by telepathy if I notice something is wrong with the plan!" Robin instructed. Then she realized that while Frederick had motioned for the others to move to the bridge he himself had lingered for now. "Yes, Frederick?"

"The last time milord led a separate detachment it was every female in the Shepherds except Lissa, at Lissa's suggestion. I thought it was because Maribelle was the healer for the squad. It turned out to be Lissa trying to 'ship' him with _all of them at once_ due to the depletion of the royal family after the last war. This set-up looks disturbingly similar." Frederick said quietly, but apparently not quietly enough, since Chrom was groaning into his hands a few paces away while Sumia patted him on the back to try to comfort him, and Miriel scribbled in a notebook. Well, it was part of any big brother/parent figure, right? To tease and embarrass their wards at suitable occasions? Never let it be said that Frederick took his job insufficiently seriously. Sometimes, Chrom wished he was less diligent. As the Prince grew up, those times grew sadly more frequent, instead of less.

On the other hand, Sumia and Sully were both blushing at Frederick's insinuations, the former like a tomato and the latter with a light dusting of pink. Robin felt an urge to squee at this, but overcame it with the clarity of being the Overmind.

* * *

Forecast for later chapters:

"Whoa, you have STRIPPERS in your retinue? Wow, are there any male ones we can make use of?" Robin's first impression of… you can guess.

"UNGH! Wait, I have a penis now? Ooh, that feels _good_ … FOR SCIENCE!" Sumia's opinion of… you can guess.

* * *

A/N: For now, Sumia is fighting as a Soldier, pretty much. I gave Pegasus Knights a shield because lancers charging at flying cavalry speeds pretty much need one.

I was annoyed to learn that canonically Emmeryn became Exalt at just under ten. That is slightly incompatible with my storyline and events (especially because it would put the war at 14-15 years ago, which is mostly incompatible with a 10-year-old Robin).

 **WARNING: This fic will not only mess with FE stuff** (for example some supports will be impossible, e.g. Chrom has _zero_ chance of not noticing Robin is a lady) **, but also deal with StarCraft lore in a sense! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.**

I get this funny feeling that if they encounter the Fates/If crew at any point. Other than obvious mutual punch-outs (and "why are there two of me here, neither of which are me?" by Luna and co.), Ophelia/Noire may also end up being a brawl (Ophelia is clearly a visual Noire Expy with Lissa's cheer).

REVIEW!


	4. The Escape Artist

A/N: I suspect I'll alternate between Soldier Sumia and Pegasus Knight Sumia depending on terrain and opposition. However, I'll show Soldier Sumia as a badass in this chapter… it really is the riding boots that get to her. If you want to think of the shield as a Draco Shield (I'm trying to minimize the number of words I have to add to Word's dictionary), feel free.

Infestation is going to be interesting to deal with, I think… Robin shows a prime example in this example of why merging Zerg physiology with an organism wired to reproduce (unlike Zerg) is a Bad Idea (i.e. violence is incredibly arousing). The question is, will the Infested who retain their freedom be similar?

If you don't want the Risen equivalent of Rocky Mountain Oysters, please avert your eyes while Robin acquires Risen essence. While some parts of this fic will be DARK, most of it is intended to be funny. You can probably figure out who Lissa is likely going to be paired with here (it's not like he's one of the indispensable Gaius/Donnel/Robin Pegasus Knight givers who MUST be with Sully/Nowi/Tharja…). Also, chapters will mostly be shorter (than my usual 7000-9000) I think, from here on.

* * *

Chapter 4: The Escape Artist

 _Ylisse North Road, September 15, Year 0 of the Swarm_

Sumia deflected a Risen Myrmidon's sword off her shield before impaling her lance through its face, tearing its head off. To her left, guarding that side because of the flexibility of tome attacks, Miriel was observing the effects that Fire tomes had on the Risen and how hitting them in the head tended to have them disintegrate after a relatively brief period where they continued shambling onward, compared to simply lighting them on fire in the torso. To her right were Chrom and Robin, with Chrom's left side guarded by Sumia's shield and lance and his right taken care of by Robin's blade and tome.

Those unfamiliar with actual Pegasus knights might wonder around this point why they are vulnerable to arrows and wind magic. The answer is that Pegasi cannot fit enough armor, so will always be vulnerable to arrows from below, whereas cavaliers really only need frontal armor on their horses to mostly mitigate the fact that they are huge targets. They are vulnerable to wind magic as it interferes with the magic that pegasi use to fly, not to mention if the knight has her shield out to do what she can to block arrows she's vulnerable to having the wind buffet at the shield in unpredictable and therefore dangerous ways. Still, the shield was useful enough on the attack and as defence against arrows to the back, not to mention in case they were grounded, that it was part of the standard gear.

Chrom noted all this out the corner of his eye, he also noticed Robin doing something super-human a moment later on his other side while he was busy dealing with a Risen Soldier who had an advantage over him in terms of reach. Robin had clenched her new Fire tome in her mouth while reaching out to catch a Risen Barbarian's axe in her bare left hand, with only a shallow cut and a little blood to show for it as she impaled the Risen, yanking its axe from its hand before it could disintegrate along with the rest of the foul beast. He decided to try the same, letting a lance thrust past him—curses, Sumia parried it, more or less, still, he could grab and… Hmm…

" _The weapons don't disintegrate if we disarm them before the effect reaches the weapons!"_ Robin spoke into their minds. _Loot them that way for weapons whenever feasible! We could use them later, if analysis demonstrates they can be safely used!_

She had barely finished before she hacked through the next target, stealing a lance along the way… and having an axe fall on her foot "OUCH! What the hell?" She switched to telepathy "Enemy has some normal weapons they stole, probably off of killed travellers or villagers, they fall off the straps as the Risen disintegrate."

"Fascinating, how these energies work on the equipment of the Risen will be most titillating to study…" Miriel said as she examined a lance which had partially dissolved before she snatched it away, stopping the dissolution and resulting in her wielding a short spear of sorts in her hand even as she went through slightly modified mnemonics to summon magic.

"You mean studying things arouses you?" Sumia asked, sceptical of the claim.

Miriel tried to jab a Risen in the face with her new-found spear, but was parried and got a slash to her arm for the trouble before she overcharged her next spell slightly and blew the critter's head off "…I suppose my diction could use some improvement, but you are approximately correct. My apologies, Sumia, I need a bit of cover due to this wound…"

"Right." Sumia advanced forward to give Miriel room to fall back behind her.

"You got a Vulnerary, right?" Robin asked.

"Indeed, I will apply it now."

"Well as long as that weapon was salvaged before it could disintegrate it could come in use later. Sumia, see if you can get some extra range with that thing."

"Alright, got it Robin!" Sumia ducked under another Risen's axe swing and shoved her lance into its chest, then grabbed the short spear Miriel had dropped from just behind her and hurled it into (and much of the way through) the Risen Barbarian's head.

" _Weapons obtained from Risen will disintegrate if used to kill a different Risen and left in them during the other Risen's fading."_ Robin observed to the whole squadron.

"Curses, I was hoping to use that on a more distant target…" Sumia grumbled as she realized that there were no "more distant" targets in their vicinity, because…

" _We have cleared the area south of the river. Moving to the bridgehead now."_ Robin announced. Miriel re-entered the line, between Sumia and Chrom this time as Sumia's shield was quite effective. "Lissa, heal everyone up some more, we need to get you more experience channelling magic before we can hit you with a Master Seal to give you actual attack skills…" Robin trailed off "It seems theory and practice are rather different. I wasn't paying enough attention to the Overlord data feed, I see."

"Well not every Cleric has the physical strength to use their staves as lances effectively." Lissa said happily, dual-wielding a stolen Bronze Lance and her Heal staff, both with pointy ends (staves' pointy back ends were intended for plating them in the ground during extended use… and service as a walking stick) forward.

"What should we do with the weapons we collected off the Risen?" Frederick asked, pointing to the massive heap that he and Kellam had amassed. "We cannot sell them, or people will be in danger from their weapons disappearing after getting stuck in a Risen, only to be killed by the next Risen…"

"Throwing ammunition would be best, I think." Robin suggested

Frederick frowned "Though only short spears, hand axes, and javelins are practical to throw in combat, I suppose… yes. We can do that provided we are not in contact yet." He adjusted his Silver Lance across his back while handling the stolen Iron Lance he was currently using. "Anyone with lower strength, Bronze Lances or lighter weapons please! Be careful to not hit any friendlies!"

"I suppose I could use the exertion to improve my conditioning." Miriel said, rubbing at the itch from Lissa healing the Vulnerary-sealed wound and picking up a Bronze Sword. "How to throw a sword, I wonder…" She proceeded to experiment throwing like a very short-handled spear, which mostly worked, but for bouncing off a Risen Fighter's axe as the waves of Risen rushed the bridge once more.

In contrast, Chrom's hurled Risen-sourced Iron Sword on the other hand pierced straight through a Risen Armour Knight's front armor and began disintegrating as its target fell back and began to crumble to dust. Frederick's hurled lance nailed a Risen to the ground where it remained until it too finished falling apart on the wind. Sumia on the other hand showed that while she had good skill, her strength was somewhat lacking, as her attempt to hurl a Bronze Lance ended up sticking through a Risen's head and snapping its neck backward, but did not carry it back and pin it to the ground as Frederick's throw at another Risen did. It still faded all the same, taking the lance with it.

Sumia pouted to herself at her lack of Frederick's move's intense coolness, puffing her cheeks out in irritation before she hurled another lance. This time she did manage to pin a Risen that had been knocked off its feet—literally—by Vaike's hurling of an axe that had bisected another Risen before cutting through its legs and embedding into the thighs of a third target. Sumia's lance pinned the second and third targets together, though the collapse of both was due to them "dying" so to speak, before disintegrating.

"What is it Mom?" Robin suddenly said aloud. "Guys, when there's only a few left, leave them to me, I need to take some samples. Mother says the self-decomposition of the Risen and their equipment could represent useful essence for the Swarm's recovery of lost strains or abilities."

"Certainly!" Chrom affirmed the seemingly absurd request.

After a while of cutting down the undead (?) mob, the numbers thinned enough that Robin felt secure in grappling a Risen soldier while the Risen Chief just stood there waiting for them down the road and, well…

"Captain, is that even…" Sumia was horrified as the Risen thrashed as best it could without its forearms and with one leg chopped off just above the knee. It was pinned to the ground by Robin sitting on its back.

"If combat with the Risen have not given anyone signs of infection despite all contamination and contact, then it is almost certain that whatever Robin is doing is safe for her." Miriel observed.

They, and even the Risen Chief, watched the Risen Soldier continue to thrash, while Robin tore strips out of the leg she'd chopped off, using her sharp teeth to hungrily tear pieces from it even while it was dissolving into smoke. Then she hacked the other leg off and ate that too. This was followed by flipping the remains over and cutting its ragged, dusty clothes open before she buried her face in its crotch. A few wet tearing, chewing and slurping sounds filled the air before the Risen began dissolving into purple smoke almost obscenely fast.

Robin was left on all fours with her face rather close to the ground, having observed and directed the essence gathering by Overlord, she stopped before she'd plough face-first into a mouthful of dirt. "The analysis is running, but we did manage to detect noticeable genetic alteration, as well as detect a built-in self-degradation program which could be useful for denying the Swarm's enemies samples of ourselves. Time will tell if the Swarm can figure out how Risen are created from the information I managed to obtain. If these were people at one point, and they seem to have been if the testes and the genetic material I got from eating them were any indication, there may be a means to reverse the process."

There was some more sounds of wet splattering as Stahl vomited some more by the side of the road. The women present looked pale to varying degrees, as per their level of sexual education. Lissa had smashed in the head of a Risen she'd helped Sumia pin down in case Robin needed more samples, out of sheer horror at how Robin had acquired "Essence". Miriel's lips were pressed together so tight they were almost white. The men on the other hand were beyond pale and into green territory given Robin had just ate the testicles off of a Risen. Vaike was curled up on the ground in fetal position with both hands over his crotch, almost hyperventilating if not for Chrom pinching his nose shut and only letting his mouth open every few seconds. Even Frederick was visibly affected.

"We will gladly assist in whatever capacity needed to find some means to cure the afflicted back to being human." Chrom gritted out, not trusting himself to open his mouth.

Stahl pulled his head back up, having finally finished dry-heaving, noticing something… odd. "Hey, is that Risen commander running away?"

Frederick, who had been pointedly looking away from Robin while his mare was whinnying in complaint that his legs were too tight, though still wary of anything approaching them, snapped to checking Stahl's observation. Sure enough, the Risen chief was fleeing as quickly as it could shamble along down the road. "Cavalry units, grab some of the extra lances for throwing ammunition and run it down!" He called, before spurring his horse to a charge with Sully while Stahl, who was glad for the distraction, remounted his horse and followed them.

"That was most unappetizing. Fortunately, the parts that haven't gone down my throat have all evaporated, so I don't have to pick my teeth. BLEH!" Robin tried to defuse the awkwardness, while still stooping, looking up at the standing Shepherds. She failed spectacularly at it, so she tried again. "If Risen were not, uh, so quick to decompose themselves, I could have gotten away with just a blood sample, I think. But it ended up just self-decomposing so fast that I had to go for the parts richest in genetic material that I could think of just to get enough sample to work with. Even then I could barely digest it fast enough to not be belching purple smoke. I think I'll be able to incorporate the ability of rapid reclamation when on Creep from now on, so we'll be able to recover biomass from high-loss battles after getting Overlords to dump some Creep on them and rapidly decomposing the corpses for bio-energy. Sure, it'll waste some by spending Creep, but…"

"Robin, you're babbling." Chrom headed her off. "It's alright, you were trying to gain useful abilities for your Swarm. If I had to do something like that for Ylisse, I'd do it too."

Robin slid sideways and sat on the ground, looking down before saying slowly. "Sorry you guys saw that, I don't think I have a good grasp on some Zerg instincts yet, and I had no idea how to harvest 'Essence' properly, so I let instinct take over…" She decided it would be a very bad idea to mention how _exciting_ she'd found eating the Risen while it was still "alive", more or less, it had been downright erotic with how her brain was apparently wired now. Even though she knew full well that eating Risen should make her feel utter disgust and self-loathing… she couldn't help the fact that she needed to change her panties as soon as possible.

Even thinking about how the Risen's raw flesh had given way between her teeth, particularly when she sank her incisors in through the thin flesh sacks around those tasty… uh… "Meatballs"… was dangerously titillating. Of course, she would have preferred that there was no hair around to tickle her nose as she chomped down, but— _ROBIN, STOP THINKING ABOUT IT._ She screamed at herself mentally, then forced herself to think more like a human… _Oh gods, what have I done? I learnt that it might be possible to save Risen… yet I ate that man like a child pulling legs off an insect, or yanking the ears of a rabbit…_ She wanted to puke, but nothing came up as she had neither spit weapons nor anything her body detected as hazardous, and Zerg did not waste resources so flippantly as to do so for pure emotion.

Actually, that wasn't quite true given Zerg did treat hormones associated with sadness by purging them through tears and saliva. Sadness and other negative emotions existed in the Swarm purely as a motivator, a stick to the carrot of joy. So… why hadn't felt this same joy when biting that brigand's face off back in South Town? Why had it not… no, no _it couldn't be that having a recognizable face made a target human, made inflicting pain on it pleasurable. Oh gods…_ Robin was discovering the dark side of humanity.

"Robin? Robin!" Chrom shaking her shoulder brought her back to reality instead of a somewhat sociopathic-level detached thought tangent and subsequent realizations.

Robin took his helping hand gratefully, getting back up and dusting her robe off. "Sorry, it's just hitting me how… Zerg my mind is now. It makes me feel sick, but I suppose if this is the price I must pay for Mother to have a chance to live again… Let's follow Frederick. Vaike, can you man the wagon after Lissa heals the last couple cuts you took? I swear, you should get some armor… then again that might compromise your mobility even more than having to handle an axe already does."

"No problem." Vaike hopped onboard.

A shadow passed over their heads, and most of the crew looked up, though Frederick pointedly looked around instead, because it might be a distraction.

"…Egression?" Sumia muttered sceptically as she let go of the riding boots she'd tucked into her belt.

Robin frowned at the older woman "Is that Pegasus… yours?"

"She has the right markings and harness and other gear, but… who could have helped her into the gear…" Sumia scratched her head.

Robin sighed, then expressed her true concern "What I'm more concerned with is… _why the hell is it_ _ **trailing a fucking RAINBOW**_?"

* * *

 _Ylisstol, Same Time_

"Let us hope this doesn't turn into an international incident." Emmeryn said, rubbing her brow. "Don't apologize anymore, Phila. I remember when I tried riding pegasi, they don't like being grounded… why did you put the gear on anyhow?"

"They seemed to miss the familiar weight after I took them on their walk around the stable grounds without gear, so I thought I'd lead them on a nice walk in gear. I didn't expect Egression to make, well, egress… the moment I turned away to get some carrots for them…"

"I think you forgot why Sumia named her that. Sometimes I worry about you, Phila, being grounded doesn't seem to be treating you too well, especially more recently. You've been a bit absent-minded some days…"

Phila shrugged "Well, pegasi really don't like being bonded to any riders bonded to other pegasi, and Exalt's Chief Aide is still a very useful position to the Halidom…"

"Yes, but I'm still sorry about your grounding…"

"I'd prefer not to make the Ylissean Pegasus Knights the laughingstock of the world, thanks. I don't know why Egression can switch the rainbow trail off for at least short periods, but my Pegasus sure can't. Can you imagine leading troops to battle, or even on a patrol, while trailing a thousand-foot rainbow?"

"As previously pointed out, she's named that for good reasons. She must have figured out how to switch the rainbow off to facilitate escapes."

"…Your Grace, how many times do you think she's escaped the stables from our grounding to just now?"

Emmeryn tried very hard to not think about the number of potential diplomatic incidents that might occur if something that could be reckoned one of Sully's creations got loose unsupervised from weapons lab… AHM, KITCHEN, DEFINITELY KITCHEN… experimentation. "Only Naga knows… and Egression herself, of course."

* * *

 _Ylisse North Road_

"Sully?"

"Yes, Robin?"

"Can we weaponize you in combination with a kitchen soon?" They had just finished explaining to Robin exactly how Egression had gained the ability to apparently have a rainbow trail that always took up a certain length—about three hundred meters or 1000 feet—behind the Pegasus before it faded.

Frederick answered, as Sully was busy laughing. They had just returned from the three mounted soldiers taking down the Risen Chief. "I'm afraid not, Robin, see, there are international treaties that go as far as Valm for some stupid reason banning the use of my family's culinary products in war. Fortunately they don't stretch to unintended victims, or, well, Sumia's Pegasus would have to still be quarantined…" He narrowed his eyes at the Pegasus "As far as I know Egression should still be under quarantine, so why…"

"The name should be hint enough. I can't remember how many damned times I tried to trap that Pegasus somewhere as a prank, it would ALWAYS escape." Lissa grumbled. In response, Egression farted on her as the mount passed the Princess "UGH!"

Robin was concerned with something else. "Sumia?"

"Yes, Robin?"

"How did your feet not tear themselves to bits on the pebbled ground during the fighting?"

"I've always been really resistant to bumps and minor scratches for some reason… good thing too, or I'd be even uglier and stupider too from all the blows to the head from my clumsiness."

Robin cleared her throat, prompting Sumia to look down at her, and locked gazes for several minutes, her feet navigating with Overlord aid. "I disagree with the ugliness, but I agree that you must be at least occasionally stupid to actually think yourself ugly, with all due respect."

Sumia grinned back at the compliment "…Thanks, I suppose."

"Though I do really want to see if, once I upgrade my body to be more efficient in extracting genetic information from samples, I can have a small blood sample to analyze your ability?" Sumia seemed to be a lot further away than she was a moment ago… Robin looked down at the ground, yep, Sumia was riding further and further away in lateral distance, though not simple panicking and fleeing, which was good…

"…I'm sorry, Robin, but until I see a few less intensely disturbing demonstrations of collecting, uh, 'essence' I'd rather not risk your instincts taking over again or something similar." Sumia was answering, shivering at the thought of the starving animal they'd been witness to earlier.

"I understand… I'll ask Mother to get working on something that could help deal with the Risen now that we have taken samples. Some of those bodies weren't decomposed at all, and their faces were still recognizable underneath their gear… maybe the Swarm could restore their humanity?"

"That would be very nice." Lissa had finally managed to find her voice and squeaked something out after being scarred for life by the sight of Robin's feeding. She was also scarred for life, to a lesser extent, by the sight of Sumia's Pegasus's rainbow trail passing through her without apparent effect other than tinting her sight when looking through said rainbow. The most scarring by far was something she would really rather not think about. Sure, she liked to pretend to be super-perverted and try to make Frederick tear his hair out, but she never expected the sight of Robin eating a Risen's testicles to be so… _arousing…_ She screamed at herself in her mind as she finally confronted this epiphany. _GAH! STOP THINKING THESE THINGS, LISSA! JUST CHANGE YOUR PANTIES AFTER AND FORGET ABOUT IT until the next time Robin carves an enemy open and feasts on their hot, steaming… STAHP._

* * *

 _Eastern Gate 3 (AKA Checkpoint Charlie), Long Fort, September 19, Year 0 of the Swarm_

"So this is the Long Fort." Lissa murmured while Chrom was going up for a chat.

Frederick handled the exposition "Indeed. This is the third gate from the eastern coast. Due to some cultural reference from the Annas through the Outrealm Gate, it is commonly called 'Checkpoint Charlie'."

"It is… long. The maps make it seem awfully inefficient though given the eastern and western edges are so much longer than needed to cut the continent in half…" Robin mused.

Frederick continued to explain "On many Ylissean maps it is labelled differently than it actually is. The Feroxi demanded a small amount of land in exchange for their help in the last war, to shorten the borders, and Father complied. The Plegians similarly had to give up some land so that the Long Fort, when it was finally completed, could be shorter than it would be otherwise. Construction was paused during the war in the hopes they'd be able to make the structure shorter, and things worked out for the Feroxi. It's still marked on most maps along the original plans, the original border. Of course, to maintain our traditionally good relations, Ferox ceded a little land in return to us as an exchange. However, it was still seen as rather humiliating by many, so quite a number of people stubbornly warp their maps when drawing them."

Robin just realized the negotiations that Chrom was conducting up ahead were going sour very, very quickly when the Overlord alerted her to enemy soldiers preparing an attack with… staves? Still, the lack of actual spear points wouldn't stop it from incapacitating with a hit, if not killing if it hit Chrom on the head. "CHROM, FALL BACK." She shouted, charging forward, but was far too slow compared to how quickly Sumia's Pegasus picked up speed in its rainbow-trailed charge toward Chrom just as the tip-less javelins left the hands of the throwers.

Still, even Sumia was too slow, since she had been starting from a stop. She leaned over to scoop Chrom up, but just as her neck passed above where his shoulder had been, she was struck by a staff, which… bounced off? She picked Chrom up seemingly without even feeling the hit that should have broken her neck like dry tinder.

 _Oh yeah, I gotta have some of that Essence…_ Robin thought. Wait, what…

… _And essence from the Pegasus too._ She amended, as she watched Sumia's Pegasus do a double hammerhead turn, with vertical loop and quadruple alternating-handedness corkscrews thrown in before a heart-line roll and then a wing-over to evade the rain of hurled staffs trying to hit it on its way back to friendly lines, all within the fifty or so meters that was the effective range of javelins from the wall. Robin could only understand the manoeuvres due to Overlord aid and the conveniently permanently dorsal-ventral-aligned rainbow emitting from Egression's rear end acting like a ribbon tracing the twists and turns. _If Sumia can keep from puking like Chrom is busy failing to—I think Egression just spun his face sideways into some of his own falling vomit out of offense at him puking while onboard—I can totally see why her sense of balance on the ground might not be the best… she's seriously screwed up by her escape artist Pegasus._

Oh, and regarding the blunt-ended staves, if this was a test of some sort of intent from the Feroxi, well then Robin would make sure to give them a test worth remembering. However, that felt like a serious "meh, whatever" compared to this… situation she was seeing, and that Pegasus. After all, it was hardly for nothing that someone's nickname didn't take long for anyone who'd seen her mad Pegasus's moves—mostly with Sumia hanging on for dear life—to have "Crazy Horse" added to the repertoire, alongside "Stumbles"…

* * *

FORECAST: "I swear, if he'd been female instead it would have been 'Mauda' for hopes that he… ahem, SHE, would birth a good avatar of Grima. Based on the Chon'sin language, I believe my hitting him… no, HER… with a Wind and Fire tome at the same time would be a case of… MAUDA-FUUKA!" Robin's opinion on Validar's original name which he had changed due to too many "Yo Mauda" jokes.

POSSIBILITY: Severa: "It's been a long time, Gaius… or should I say… Asugi." Gaius: "Luna? What are you doing here? And since when did Caeldori have a twin?" Cordelia: "I think I missed a memo somewhere…" Caeldori: "No shit, granny."

* * *

A/N: BEHOLD THE NYAN PEGASUS! Yes, I know Crazy Horse was the name of a Native American chief, hence the nickname.

So far my plans for Essence contributions look something like this (subject to change and some are not shown intentionally, such as Vaike, as I have no idea what yet), by order of (expected) recruitment here (child characters indeterminate at present… Except **Kjelle** who probably unlocks Defilers and Noxious Ultralisks—partially surpassing Sully) Please note some strains must be unlocked piecemeal:

 **Lissa** (Ground Queen), **Sully** (Vile Roaches, Ultra-Chromatic Beam Emitter—several attempts at several stages required to unlock this fully for installation on Zerg combat strains), **Miriel** (most support strains' Brain Components), **Sumia** (unlock Roach Armor Component, her mount unlocks Mutalisks), **Kellam** (Infestor Burrowed Movement, Tunnelling Claws), **Panne** (Roach _Warren_ , as if you expected anything else), **Maribelle** (Everything with rayed membranes can benefit, also improves all spitting attack range when essence tested shortly after consuming anything made by Sully), **Anna** (Swarmlings, Splitters Or Swarm Host, I'd think, one of the swarm units at least), **Cordelia** (unlock Roach and Ultralisk Mobility Components, them wide hips there must be a balance challenge…), **Emmeryn** (Brood Mother upgrade), **Olivia** (Swarm Host Burrowing, Impaler/Lurker Mobility Component), **Gangrel** (Extracted by consumption, Frenzy for Hydralisks), **Say'ri** (Vicious Glaive), **Cherche** (Raptor, or maybe an Overlord upgrade that allows supporting more underlings), **Henry** (Corpser Roaches), **Yen'fay** (Sundering Glaive), **Walhart** (consumed for Monarch Blades, Torrasque Strain), **Aversa** (Viper)

REVIEW REPLIES!

 **Truemmerphantom** : I was contemplating setting this series aside as a lost cause until you stood and were counted. Thank you.

 **A-Non-Knee-Moose** : I did not think that needed to be stated due to sheer obviousness *wink*.


	5. Never Go Full Retard

A/N: Miriel's Dark Knight Card from the FE Cipher game makes her a fan-service character… I am disappointed, as she's supposed to be the token wholesome… or maybe that's Sumia.

If you suspect Cynthia's heroism comes from Egression… I don't know yet, it could be the case, it could be not (e.g. Sumia doesn't always HAVE Egression across timelines). If you aren't sure why Chrom is reacting like he does to Egression, the rescue involved two hammerhead turns (the original version of the Immelmann turn, done while stalling), vertical loop, then quadruple alternating-handedness corkscrews, a heart-line roll, and a wing-over (original Immelmann, done without stalling). Also, given Sumia's Personal Ability here is resistance to diffuse impacts and invulnerable head, given her light equipment… can you think of a Zerg unit with Light armor class but high armor rating? (Hint: Roach) I also need to work in her animal communications somewhere… maybe an Overlord upgrade? Not nearly as good as Emmeryn's aura, but…

I'm not sure how to handle last names, I think I'll just not use them, or have most of them for the major houses (e.g. Ylisse, Themis, etc.) match the lands they rule… or some are simply referred to by their last names (Walhart). Otherwise, I suspect the Cordelia von Karma, Frederick Frederickson, Stahl Tactics (or Stahl Wart), Donnel Duck, Ricken Roll, and Henry Hannibal ideas from various forums may make my brain bleed.

Did you notice how Elibe is quite literally Europe? Lycia is the princedoms of the Holy Roman Empire (see Europa Universalis 4 for example), Bern is the Ottoman Empire (Or Austria or Hungary depending on interpretation), there is a province in Crusader Kings 2 in the Russian steppes that corresponds to the biggest city in Sacae (It is literally named Bolgar or some variant spelling I forget), and of course Ilia is Scandinavia. The Nabata Desert is the Sahara migrated north a bit into Iberia, and the Dread Isle is Sicily, Corsica, or Sardinia.

* * *

Chapter 5: Never Go Full Retard

 _Eastern Gate 3 (AKA Checkpoint Charlie), Long Fort, September 19, Year 0 of the Swarm_

"Those javelins had no tips, this is some sort of test to see if we're actually aggressive. The border guard wouldn't want to risk actually doing something stupid to make a real incident, though with the height of the Gate, it could have killed you anyways." Robin explained to Chrom as they planned things.

"Please rinse it off, Captain, in case it gets in your eyes later." Sumia advised, holding her water skin out for Chrom to clean his face and neck. This had happened to enough people that no one but Cordelia and Phila ever bothered to ride with her on Egression, ever. The Pegasus tended to get offended if someone puked while onboard, and then proceed to manoeuvre in a way to ensure the person got a face full or otherwise hit by their own vomit.

"The later spins threw most it off, and the snow dealt with the rest, but thanks, Sumia." Chrom said once he was finished kissing the snow-covered ground and wiping the vomit off in said snow. Deciding it wasn't sufficient as an expression for his love of the ground, he splayed himself flat over it instead of just being on hands and knees. Of course, he found a fresh patch of snow to plant his face in, and did not, contrary to later legend, hump the ground in appreciation (the snow was COLD). He would however later be spotted chasing his younger sister around yelling at her for feeding such lies to historians.

"Oh… um, I'm happy to help, Captain. Sorry that Egression was a bit tempted to show off."

"You mean we could have gotten out of there with fewer crazy moves?" Chrom looked rather murderous as he glared up at her.

Sumia looked down at the ground "…Sorry, Captain, sometimes Egression has a mind of her own and goes wild, especially if she's been cooped up too long. It's always worked out for the best so far, but…" She shrugged helplessly.

"I…" Chrom strangled off his imminent joking declaration of loathing upon seeing how Sumia was reacting and getting a sudden feeling that Lissa would not let him get even a second of peace if he managed to make any woman in camp cry. "I'll talk to Emm to convince her to get the Council to agree to unground you and Phila once we get back. If this is what your Pegasus does when it's been stir-crazy for a while… I never want to subject another human being to even having to witness it."

"…Sorry…"

"Robin, any ideas on how to deal with the enemy's advantages?"

"Well, Mother managed to morph a basic Hydralisk Den late on the 15th, after our battle on the North Road, and on the 16th she sent out two dozen Hydralisks in Overlords to shadow us as reinforcements in the event of another skirmish. What say you about deploying them? They are capable of reducing the sharpness of their spines to non-lethal proportions, and their scythes too, given a bit of time to prepare before battle. They will use a powerful paralytic agent which targets the nerves in the limbs, non-vital systems, instead of their usual poisons… we'll just have to follow after them and make sure no one suffocates or freezes in the snow."

"Suffocation or freezing while paralyzed sounds awful, almost as awful as when Stahl had an upset stomach last week." Vaike put in, imagining suffocating on snow, unable to do anything but drown in the melt-water generated by blowing air out into the snow…

"You were sick, Stahl?" Chrom asked.

Stahl scratched his head "Uh, well…"

"Hey, that would explain why you puked after watching Robin eat the Risen's balls off!" Vaike suddenly realized.

Stahl frowned as he thought of something. "Does it explain you forgetting to tell me about the mission, Vaike?"

"Uh… I thought you could use some extra days to recover, so I, ahem, 'forgot' to tell you about the march."

Chrom hummed appreciatively "That's a nice sentiment, Vaike, but you could have just told us Stahl had been sick recently. By the way, Stahl, what could make you so sick?"

"Hah! Cordelia came by on leave, and decided to take on the challenge of trying to salvage the rations Sully tried to prepare before leaving on your patrol to the south!" Vaike laughed upon remembering the usually dignified and perfectionist Cordelia cursing up a storm while random explosions and wet noises came from the kitchen. Then he realized from the surrounding silence that the near war crime really wasn't funny given _they'd allowed Sully into a kitchen_. So he abruptly stopped laughing.

"Hey, it LOOKED and SMELLED… and tasted too, for that matter, edible enough… amazing, I know… And at least I'm not puking rainbows!" Stahl protested.

Virion examined Stahl's blushing protest rather closely "Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder… so I conclude you must be interested in this Cordelia lady."

Stahl looked around at the circle of mostly smug grins (Miriel was scribbling notes again) "Uh… please don't tell her before I can?"

"No problem!" Lissa chirped.

Stahl simply looked flatly at her "Uh… Lissa, you do realize that if you know something half the camp usually knows within five minutes? Or half of Ylisstol within the day?"

"Yes, but the WHOLE camp we have with us now know this, so that's over and done with." Lissa pointed out.

"HEY! ARE YOU LOUTS GOING TO TRY TO PROVE YOURSELVES OR NOT?" There was a distant yell from the direction of the Far Fort Eastern Gate 3.

"THIS WOULD BE A LOT EASIER IF YOU'D COME DOWN TO FIGHT US SO THAT WE CAN PROVE OURSELVES!" Robin shouted, considerably louder than she should have been capable of given her very unimpressive physical size.

The returned yell was "YOU JUST WENT FULL RETARD. NEVER GO FULL RETARD. YOU DO SEE THE SIDE GATE STAIRS, RIGHT? YOU CAN PROVE YOUR STRENGTH BY COMING UP THOSE AND FIGHTING US."

"IF WE WENT UP THOSE NARROW ALLEYS OF DEATH WE'D **REALLY** BE GOING FULL RETARD." Robin roared back.

"LOOK, IF YOU CAN PROVE PEACEFUL INTENT BY FIGHTING TO INCAPACITATE WE WILL NOT USE THOSE FOR A KILL ZONE. THIS IS A TEST WHICH IS IN FACT PASSABLE. ON THE HONOUR OF FEROX THIS I, RAIMI, DO SWEAR. WE DON'T WANT A DAMNED DIPLOMATIC INCIDENT EITHER, OR DID YOU NOT NOTICE THE HEADLESS JAVELINS EARLIER? WE EVEN SENT A FEW SOLDIERS DOWN CARRYING THE KEYS TO THE SIDE GATES AS A PRELIMINARY TEST!"

"ALRIGHT, BUT BE WARNED, IF THERE'S ANY FOUL PLAY THE FACTION I PERSONALLY REPRESENT, THE ZERG SWARM, WILL TAKE APPROPRIATE MEASURES!"

* * *

 _Later_

"We were actually expecting Ylissean emissaries asking for aid, because of the… what do you call them? Risen that some of the villages have reported." Raimi told them in a matter-of-fact tone, while Lissa was busy accruing more experience healing people up from the bumps and bruises (and a couple broken bones) they'd taken during the fight. At least, the fighters who were actually injured, instead of yielding and walking after the group with their weapons stowed, just in case these challengers were going to try something. Fighting to not kill on either side was a real pain in the ass given the Ylisseans had real, sharp weapons just in case…

"They are appearing even in Ferox?" Chrom frowned.

"Not often, nor many, compared to what I've been hearing from merchants coming from the south. They seem to dislike the cold." Raimi informed him.

Chrom nodded "Ah, that's consistent with the pattern across Ylisse then. It is a relief to hear that Ferox is not as afflicted as we are… Hey, Robin, isn't Gate Island warmer than Ylisse?"

"Been a while since we had any first-time travellers, where did those louts put the… ah, there it is!" Raimi said to herself as she went over some papers and rummaged around her desk for the appropriate stamps, not paying attention to them.

"The Drones around the base were enough to kill the Risen that showed up there." Robin answered "Also, the devolved-to-first-iteration Hydralisk Den has been completed for most of a day, and Mother has morphed hundreds of Hydralisks by now despite the comparatively poor larval generation of first-stage Hatcheries. They've been taking care of the Risen easily since then. Starting tomorrow we will have enough forces to begin reinforcing southern Ylisse should you so desire. I won't even ask for some of the lands still lying abandoned from the last war, because we still have more than enough surplus bio-energy stored away and more than enough net gain each day coming in from the existing Creep carpet."

"If things get worse than the reports indicate so far, which is that Risen mostly only harass and terrify instead of actually swarming settlements, except near the Plegian border, then we might need to ask for the Swarm's aid even if it'll scare a lot of the citizens." Chrom said. "I'm of half a mind to ask you to deploy them near the Plegian border regardless to ward off potential raids, but I don't want the populace to get terrified enough of what they'd see as monsters to go raid Plegia pre-emptively or something similarly stupid. Peasants do not an army make, as father's folly taught me. At least the Plegians raiders so far are mainly out to terrify instead of scorch the earth." The Ylisseans were oddly quiet after this.

"Well, here's all your papers, appropriately authorized." Raimi handed the papers over to Chrom "It's just routine paperwork, even though the garrison commanders are under orders to escort ambassadors and visiting royalty to the capitol personally, if any of your party members start a bar fight or something in a city, this should help." Almost everyone, led by Raimi, looked at Vaike, who looked easily the most uncultured out of the Ylissean group.

"Hey, Teach ain't THAT dumb." The man grumbled.

"Well, you might be able to teach how to be dumb?" Lissa probed, hoping he wouldn't figure it out.

Vaike snorted "Do you know how hard it is for a smart person to fake dumb properly? I bet not even Miriel could do it."

"I find this hypothesis sufficiently accurate." Miriel said, noting something down again, this time regarding how smart one had to be to act dumb. After all, she was interested in learning EVERYTHING, so sociology and psychology were part of her realm too.

Vaike suddenly realized that he should have added something "…Oh, and thanks for the compliment, Lissa."

"Well I take it back, since you took so long to figure it out you're nowhere close to smart enough to teach being stupid, except maybe by example."

Vaike sighed as they left Checkpoint Charlie behind and marched onward toward the Feroxi Capital… which, while technically not the seat of either Khan's power, was typically used as the Capital for the simple reason that both Khans were too lazy. Incidentally, while they did their best to pick people for a good show to be Ruling Khan, there was usually a vague hesitance only overcome by a desire to one-up the other. The reason was the fact that, particularly with Feroxi warrior tradition, tying a powerful enough warrior to be Khan to a desk for two years or more at a time demonstrated a good deal of masochism from said warrior.

* * *

 _Feroxi Capitol, September 21, Swarm Year 0_

East-Khan Flavia eyed the Ylissean prince and the, uh, "Overmind" of this… Swarm she talked about "A race of mostly warriors, huh? Sounds interesting. I'm wondering if your people won't have a panic attack, Chrom, when our forces march in to help defend Ylisse from these… Risen, you call them?"

"Yes, we call them Risen… what did you call them before we arrived?" Chrom asked out of curiosity.

"Vapor Zombie Wannabes." Flavia grinned as she noticed the white-haired woman snort in appreciation at the term "It's a lot ruder, though writing it on reports is a bit longer, I admit. Now, if your people would be scared shitless of an alien warrior race, wouldn't they be at least a bit twitchy toward Feroxi troops? I'd rather not hear reports of 'friendly fire'… and I do know that a lot of Ylisseans think of us as uncultured brutes…"

"Emmeryn will ensure things go smoothly. We're just hoping to get reinforcements before the winter makes travelling and moving forces to rescue villages from Risen attacks harder, and really, Plegia isn't dumb enough to launch a winter campaign, with their supply lines over the mountains or a stormy sea, anyhow." Chrom did his best to present his argument.

"Well, if you guys can win me the tournament, sure, I can authorize Feroxi troops to move south."

"Doesn't the East Khan get at least command over a good chunk of their own forces, if not the joint forces?" Robin asked.

Flavia smirked "Nah, we chain one of the Khans to a desk until they get bored enough that one-upping the other in the tournament isn't worth it to them anymore. The other Khan works as advisor and gets to gloat about having time off instead of a sword or axe hand twitching from too much paperwork."

There was a moment of silence, then Flavia picked at her ears, because of a distant sound that sounded something vaguely like "MY SWORD HAND SENSES TINGLE!" Followed by "OUCH, OUCH, STOP HITTING ME!"

"Did you just hear that too?" Everyone nodded "Anyhow, the bi-annual tournament for Reigning Khan is tomorrow, and I don't think old Basilio's gotten quite tired enough of being locked in a gilded cage yet, so he's probably not going to cue his man to just put on a good show… Still, if you can win the title for me I'll sign off on your request. How about it?"

Chrom nodded "We will prevail for our nation's need… wait, what do you mean, tomorrow?"

"We hold the tournaments on the autumn equinox, which happens to be September 22. I believe there was some literary joke originating with the Annas and Outrealms about catching the number twenty-two or something back when the decision to host it on that date was made, but that has been lost to history."

* * *

 _Arena Ferox, September 22, Swarm Year 0_

Red Team's Laurent (hereby abbreviated as Red-Laurent) had a sudden thought. He wasn't sure where it came from, but he needed to voice it… "Hey, if Grima followed us… do you think he'd show up as male, or would he be female this time?"

Everyone else preparing to enter the arena looked at him, before Grey-Laurent said "…I'm fairly sure I wouldn't want to think about it."

"Well your Grimas didn't manage to follow you." A voice said from above them. They looked up to see the white-haired woman that was Robin in this timeline, apparently… Red-Laurent abruptly figured out where he'd gotten the urge to speak from. "I on the other hand got chucked back here because I managed to throw a big enough tantrum that Naga helped me out, after turning everyone else into reversible zombies after I killed my darling Chrom." They suddenly found that they weren't able to move as this Robin's… no, Grima's eyes glowed red and immense power crushed down upon them. "Don't worry, I'm not here to cause any trouble… except maybe ogle my dear Chrom's prowess even when he was young and inexperienced, and maybe lick his warm, firm body a few times while he's sleeping… or help him have a nice dream or a few… until I find a way back into his company and his bed."

She made a few mimed pumping motions with her hand and mouth, then shivered in delight at the thought "Mm… it's been so long since I tasted him, I wonder if this version tastes the same as the one where I came from… I won't rape him conventionally, because I want to make sure he's happy and enjoys his first experience… even if it's not me." She shook her head as if trying to clear it, growling at the thought of being beaten out in the fight for Chrom's affection. "I… I tried to revive him, but my daughter, your counterpart, my Lucina, killed him for good before I could make her understand that the entire apocalypse was just me having a rage tantrum over his death. I could have healed him if I had more time with my full power unlocked, for in that version I was literally born as Grima in human form, I wanted to see what the fuss about human forms was about… and it was wonderful. If not for the residues of spells Validar cast upon me early on in my human life flaring up unexpectedly and mixing with my residual animosity toward Naga's chosen I would never… I stabbed him before I quite realized, and without my powers awakened, preventing the bodily death of one of Naga's line was beyond my ability as I lacked enough influence over his body. He… he didn't blame me, even when he was a Risen under my command. He didn't even blame me for failing to protect him again… from your counterpart, before his soul moved on."

She sighed "My destroying the world after his true death was just me basically blackmailing that Naga into cooperating with me to help me come to a timeline where my darling is still alive and healthy… I restored that world and its people to the way things should have been, except for those slain by Falchion who were beyond my help, before leaving your counterpart to be Exalt and to find your own path, coming here to find my darling again." She let out a deep, rumbling giggle that didn't seem to fit her goddess-like look, before leaving them with "Good luck, princesses… don't worry, this time, I will mostly sit out of the mess for now, unless you hurt my darling or this Naga manages to manipulate you into trying to keep me from your delectable father outright. I wouldn't put it past that prankster even though I fixed everything back there as per our agreement…" She faded into thin air as she teleported away.

"…Uh…" Teal-Severa (she was dubbed important enough in counterpart to the second Princess of Ylisse to be given a specific name instead of Grey Team Severa or Grey-Severa) was first to vocalize her very intelligent opinion of the matter once they could move again.

"…It appears that the version of Grima that came back into this timeline is a hopeless pervert obsessed with Chrom." Red-Laurent said, pretending to push up his glasses, but in actual fact wiping at the small nosebleed that had come with the mental imagery of someone like that Robin molesting and pleasuring a man while he slept. "That would explain why our Naga called this timeline an easy one."

"I'm wondering if we don't have a third troupe of us simply due to her bunch not coming back after realizing everything was fixed and that it was all a glorified tantrum." Grey said flatly, completely shaken by the Grima that had shown up being so abysmally different from expected.

And it WAS Grima. That immense presence… it could be no one else unless Naga was into trolling people.

…Well, Naga WAS into trolling people, but this wasn't exactly her modus operandi.

Teal-Severa on the other hand was focused on something else, namely noticing Red-Laurent's nosebleed "If your mother's catch-phrases are the same as my version of Lady Miriel, then I should really clock you over the head and yell 'Be gone, foul imagination!' just for that perverted nosebleed of yours!"

Blue-Severa turned on him (Red-Laurent was in her group), prompted by her counterpart to notice "Stop fantasizing about my daddy!" She really did clock him over the head. "I think if your Inigo was here you'd be hitting him too… speaking of which, I'm surprised my Inigo hasn't… where is Inigo? Ugh, probably hiding to avoid me kicking him in the balls for getting excited or something." Meanwhile, Grey-Owain crossed his legs at the thought of getting bonked the same way his head had been struck yesterday.

Teal-Severa nodded "Yeah, but there's no time to go find the others now…" She fell silent, suddenly realizing what the horrifying itch between her legs was. Close exposure to Grima's power, which was similar, too similar, to her father's, had resulted in the Mark of Grima encircling her labia warming up and vibrating slightly with the resonance. _Why couldn't I have had the Mark somewhere convenient like Daddy did?_ She mentally lamented, eying her counterpart and wondering if she had a similar problem with her Brand of the Exalt being exposed to Grima's power. She'd thought on previous occasions that it was just bloodlust, or joy to have survived, but in this case… it was clearly… something very wrong.

* * *

 _Moments later…_

"Hey, Robin? Do you have a twin?" Chrom was staring at the woman holding up a huge sign reading "I *heart symbol* YOU CHROM!" who had apparently _intimidated a whole block of seats to vacate themselves with her aura so that they would not bother her about the sign_. "I think her eyes are glowing red and she's throwing off purple wisps of energy into the air?"

"Mother says that's probably Grima up there based on the psionic readings from the Overlords, though given her choice of showing up with that outfit, I get the feeling she didn't show up to make trouble." Robin told him, trying very hard to not look at what looked like herself wearing a dress with two obviously placed flaps in the front with the words "I WANT YOUR BABIES" and an arrow pointing downward toward the lower flap, which was in the general area of her crotch. The other flap was clearly intended for tit-fucking.

Chrom's eyebrows would have punched a hole in the ceiling if it were possible "Grima, as in the Fell Dragon?"

"Yes, but looking at her it seems she fell in a very different way… for you, and only you, it seems. I think we should ignore her until she makes contact for now, the Swarm doesn't have quite the strength to challenge her yet if she manages to fully awaken her powers, from what we're currently reading."

"Why don't we ask her about the Risen if she's wearing something like that in public? She might be amenable to communicating."

"…I think we could do that, sure. Besides, with the power I'm reading off her right now, if she actually wanted to hurt you she could have ambushed us at any time, or sent enough risen to overwhelm us. It would also explain why most of the time the Risen that show up just stand around, occasionally terrifying people, instead of, I don't know, swarming the towns and destroying them one by one." Robin mused.

"Any opinion, Frederick?"

Frederick sighed, in conflict with himself "So long as you don't exercise your foot-in-mouth ability when speaking to ladies to someone with, supposedly, Grima's power, I agree that talking is the best option we have, for now."

* * *

FORECAST: "Our parents are out of character enough to notice, but not enough to conclude we've all collectively lost it. Except… uh… your parent… Teal-Severa, Brown-Cynthia. They're FAR beyond that much off." Said by one of the mass of timeline-hopping kids.

* * *

A/N: I am disappointed at the lack of response to Sumia's Pegasus's MAD SKILLZ, not to mention the rainbow trail… or Vaike being similar in my opinion to Naruto…

We see Grima for the first time… a Yandere who fits under Stalker, Harmless and Worshipping types and who is vastly crazier about Chrom than Cordelia could ever hope to be. Her power means she can literally satisfy ANY fetish Chrom might decide to pick up, at any point. This can range up into insane things. For example, if Chrom was drunk enough to say something like "I want to bathe in their blood" regarding Plegians after a certain encounter, if Grima's already been included in their group, she will use the fact that a) Chrom would be horrified if she went out and murdered a bunch of random Plegians for blood, b) The blood from dead Plegian soldiers has gone bad by now and c) her mortal shell is Plegian by inheritance. She would modify her body enough to _make a bathtub of blood for him, and invite him to bathe with her in it_.

 **REVIEW PLEASE!**


	6. Game of Thrones

A/N: First, I should list the children who did come back in the forest, as well as those who are still missing. Many of the fathers will get nasty shocks (Freddy "I moved on from Emmeryn?" and Inigo's fathers for example):

"Red" Team PRESENT: Red-Lucina (Red and white colour scheme a la Smash Bros), Blue-Severa (Chrom's), Brown-Cynthia (Robin's, with Sumia's hair colour), Red-Laurent (Virion's), Red-Inigo (Lon'qu's), Red-Kjelle (Stahl's), Red-Yarne (Donnel's)

Red Team MISSING: Red-Owain (Gaius's), Red-Brady (Gregor's), Red-Gerome (Frederick's), Red-Noire (Ricken's), and Red-Nah (Henry's)

"Grey" Team PRESENT: Grey-Lucina (Ash-brown, pink and lavender colour scheme a la Smash Bros), Teal-Severa (Robin's, with Hatsune Miku hairbands), Blue-Cynthia (Chrom's), Grey-Laurent (Kellam's), Grey-Owain (Stahl's), Grey-Gerome (Gregor's), Grey-Noire (Henry's)

Grey Team MISSING: Grey-Inigo (Libra's), Grey-Breda (e.g. female Brady, Virion's), Grey-Kjelle (Vaike's), Grey-Yarne (Lon'qu's), and Grey-Nah (Ricken's)

Planned pairings for this fic are listed at end A/N.

* * *

Chapter 6: Game of Thrones

 _Arena Ferox, September 22, Swarm Year 0_

"What. The. Hell." Teal-Severa ground out as they watched the three pegasi go absolutely nuts above the arena.

"I couldn't have said it better." Blue-Severa agreed.

Grey-Owain took this as a cue to try "I can! BY MY SWORD HAND, THIS PEGASUS… THIS IS MADNESS!"

The two Severas shared a look, before shouting him down "NO! THIS… IS… SILENCE!" They alternated, before both slapping their hands over his mouth at once. Hitting him over the head would probably only make him worse, they figured. They were probably right…

Grey-Owain demonstrated he was in fact (astounding, isn't it?) smarter than a sack of rocks by staying silent, very glad they hadn't covered his nose too. Struggling would probably only make them worse. Meanwhile, the two Laurents were debating why Sumia had a significantly larger, sturdier shield than the average Pegasus Knight carried. They clearly didn't know about Egression's grounding until very recently.

Well, actually… To be precise, everyone in the arena was collectively watching _one_ Pegasus go berserk, and two others being a bit skittish. It belonged to Grey-Lucina's mother's counterpart, who was also by blood the mother of both of the Pegasus Knights she was practically mauling. More precisely, it was her Pegasus's absolutely insane manoeuvres and her ridiculous ability to stay combat capable despite those moves that was giving her the upper hand despite the fight being lopsided and neither side daring to intervene by throwing anything.

Oh, and said Pegasus also trailed a ribbon-like rainbow that traced its rear end's position and even orientation as it manoeuvred wildly in the air. "I wouldn't be surprised if this version of your mother is as clumsy as I remember Sir Robin's wife to be." Red-Lucina told her Sumia-born counterpart. "That flying cannot possibly be good for her sense of balance… what the hell is it doing now? No… _flight is not supposed to work that way_!"

Grey-Lucina was even more astonished at this version of her mother's moves "Ye gods…" She remembered her mother's Pegasus as being a calm, gentle creature which was a steady, responsive flier, not this… "Hey, are those eyes _glowing_ or am I imagining it?" Well, there was some speckles of foam from its mouth, to be sure…

"Hey, can we have some more fighting now besides watching this insane display?" The Robin of this world shouted at them, snapping them out of it and restoring the two Lucinas to occasionally glancing at where the self-proclaimed Grima was in the stands holding up a sign while dressed in exceedingly lewd nightwear. Surely their mothers had been too dignified to ever own anything so… insanely suggestive as to have flaps for copulating while still dressed, and with the lights on or even during the daytime, for Naga's sake!

* * *

Up in the stands, Grima saw their glances, and if they were thinking anything like how her children had thought when they'd learnt of her and Chrom's nightly dress habits… she licked her plump, rosy lips at _that_ thought, whispering to herself "There is a quote, my young friends… 'Oh how the little piglets would grunt if they knew how the old boar suffered'. Similarly, oh how you little girls would squeal if you knew of your mothers' lingerie preferences…" If they were anything like the Sumia and Cordelia she had known…

 _Mu… why's Chrom not looking my way at all, even though he's not fighting yet? I mean I know the Pegasus with a rainbow trail is really, really weird and those moves are more insane than the Sumia I knew would even be able to tolerate let alone try, but… Wow, that move there was cool… no, focus, Grima… ahem, Robin, yeah, that's a bit more feminine of a name and always did roll off Darling's tongue better… focus, Robin! Maybe Darling's just too distracted making sure that no disarmed girl ends up having her lance hit him! Yes, that must be it. Good for you, dear, take good care of yourself. You can't regenerate like I can… At least, not yet._

Her thoughts turned darker thinking of regeneration and the value of life when death wasn't cheap. _I won't let you die again, Chrom. Even if I have to burn this world too, or see you with every woman in this world but me. If you live… then that is enough for me… it has to be._ Grima knew she had a minor obsession with keeping Chrom alive, but… she'd felt him die in her arms twice already, once in body and another in soul. She would not tolerate even a real risk of having it happen again.

That being said, her counterpart here was pretty damned good in terms of what she had in her to make sure Chrom didn't die. There was something vaguely familiar about the mention of the "Zerg Swarm", but Grima would prefer to see more applications before taking too much interest in that. Also, she was happy to see that this Robin looked functionally identical to herself, which meant any children of either one might as well be the children of the other. Of course, she'd prefer not to lose the contest for Chrom to herself, but it would still sting less than some other woman… even if she'd tolerate it for Chrom's sake.

* * *

The contest overall wasn't exactly symmetric, since the reigning Khan by tradition got up to three more fighters, and Flavia had decided to send six representatives this time given the fact that there was a Pegasus Knight among them… which meant a lot of space needed in the arena. Basilio on the other hand had just told the mob of young men and women who'd managed to beat Lon'qu to choose nine of their number after hearing Flavia name her number. This resulted in the two Lucinas, two Severas, two Cynthias, two Laurents, and Grey-Owain for the last straw-draw spot. The arena was a bit cramped as a result… or would be if the Pegasi involved were not either insane or experienced.

"If I'd known that girl's Pegasus was that capable I'd have sent more people, instead of worrying about manoeuvring room to put on a decent show without tragic accidents." Flavia grumbled to Basilio. Then she realized the usually smartass West-Khan wasn't replying. "Basilio?" She tore her eyes off the vertical-loop-via-double-corkscrew-with-wingover-at-apex-finished-by-snap-roll move that said Pegasus had just done if its trailing glowing magical rainbow ribbon was any indication. Given how long it was (300 meters or 1000 feet) relative to the size of the part of the arena that Pegasi could practically fly in (tiny in comparison) it formed a tangle across the entire air space, one which the other two pigtailed Pegasus Knights were flying and fighting through with much difficulty.

Those unfamiliar with aerial manoeuvres should note that heart-line rolls are centered on an axis through the heart of the pilot, while snap rolls are centered on the main anterior-posterior axis of the craft. Corkscrews are a slanted form of barrel roll.

Flavia found it harder to tear her eyes off of Basilio's wide, disbelieving gaping maw than the clearly mad Pegasus and its insane moves which had caused said gape. Then he whispered something and she leaned in to try to hear him… and he repeated himself "…as Olivia's moves… As insane as Olivia's moves… As insane as Olivia's moves…" She smacked him over the head as the other combatants on the ground finally began to engage, very carefully. "Hey! What was that for?"

"For practically curling up and sucking your thumb from the trauma of watching the magical-rainbow-trailing Pegasus, you old oaf!"

Basilio thought for a moment, then said "For once, I'm not going to dispute that label. My behaviour probably warranted it if what I can remember of the last few minutes is any indication." Then he pointedly looking at the ground-side fighting instead of the aerial mind-fuck. It was obvious to the two Khans that either one of the pigtailed Pegasus Knights was good enough to be better than the one with the crazy mount. However, the moves that Pegasus was pulling off were more than enough to balance things.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the arena's fighting area, Chrom, Frederick, Robin, Kellam and Lissa were finally beginning to engage the enemy. Due to the enemy's high complement of sword users, Robin had gone for a group of lance users. Lissa had been getting some pointers from the lance-users of the camp on how to use her staves better. As for why they took so long… it was only after both sides were finally reasonably sure the Pegasus Knights were competent enough to not fall on them halfway through the fight. More specifically, it was after Flavia's side were sure Sumia wasn't good enough to knock either of the pigtailed riders off, and Basilio's side was certain that Sumia wasn't about to be hurled onto them. No one among the future kids wanted to find out what would happen if the counterpart to the mother of Grey-Lucina and both Cynthias happened to fall and impale herself on one of their weapons, or die crashing into the ground near them where they could have caught her, or gods forbid, crashed to death into them in any other way.

This last option was the worst was for the simple reason that they probably wouldn't have time or ability to commit suicide if she actually crashed onto them and turned out to have died. Everyone in the know suspected that both Cynthias and Grey-Lucina would skin the poor bastard in question alive before they could so much as blink if it was any of the other six participants on their side. If it was Grey-Lucina herself that resulted in Sumia dying… she'd probably explode messily by spiritual suicide or something.

It had taken them quite a while to be reasonably sure Sumia wasn't about to get annihilated by accident by the grandstanding-prone Cynthias (neither of whom were fighting to kill). It took them much, much longer to be sure she wasn't about to be flung from her Pegasus onto them. Grey-Lucina summed it up by speaking slightly before her counterpart could, though given the speed she was observing from her mother, she supposed Sumia WAS slightly faster than she remembered Cordelia to be… so it wasn't surprising that she spoke sooner "And I was hoping to have a good showdown with Dad…"

"Funny, so was I." Red-Lucina commented, both drawing their Falchions.

Chrom called out to them across the noise of Pegasus wings (which, while not used for lift except by antigravity, were still very used in manoeuvres) "I'm going to guess this is an Outrealm to you two… because there is no way in hell you'd have those swords otherwise. The only question then is… who are you, really? In Marth's time Falchion didn't look like that!"

"You know, given SHE showed up, I think the timeline is shot anyhow. Grey, what say you we just tell him after this?" Red said conversationally, motioning toward Grima in the stands with her head.

"No, I want to see how long he takes to figure it out himself. He's surely closer to the version I know than your counterpart given he figured it out in time for your coloring to happen." Grey answered.

"…We could do that, I suppose. Given how half this world seems to be in it for laughs…" Red said hesitantly.

Grey's lips curled in a grimace "When in Rosanne, do as the Rosannites do?"

"Guess you aren't much into talking? I was expecting at least some middle-schooler posturing?" Chrom taunted, not being able to hear their chatter from the other side due to the constant chatter of the crowds at the show the Pegasus Knights were putting on.

"We leave the posturing to those two lunatics up there." Red and Grey said at the same time, motioning up with their thumbs, then glancing at each other in surprise.

"Enough talk, let's fight!" Grey-Owain seemed to have finally summoned up enough courage to leave the two Severas' slackening grip on his mouth behind. Then he said something that none of them could make heads or tails of as he leapt forward "SHASHABUOY!"

* * *

A/N: If you don't recognize Kung Fu Panda, I am disappoint. I know not which author put Owain as naming his sword "Stabbity Death", but it stuck with me, and I used a variant here.

Also, names will shift depending on main perspective, so don't be surprised if I suddenly no longer use the kids' names properly and use descriptions instead in the next section.

* * *

"OH NO YOU DON'T!" In retrospect, having Vaike help Lissa with combing her staff with an axe and lance was probably not the most brilliant idea ever, since the hybrid weapon now resembled a halberd of sorts, with a standard staff orb receptor on the back of the shallower-than-standard (lighter too) axe blade. It wouldn't pierce armor without breaking the orb, but it could certainly slash, and the other end of the weapon could be used as a lance. "YOU COOL-GUY WANNABE!" She screamed in the man's face as she caught his sword on her own weapon's blade, grinding against the cross-guard in a contest of strength.

"…And that lunatic over there." Both Falchion-users appended at shouting volume in the shocked semi-silence (Pegasi wings were LOUD even though they were just for quick manoeuvring, not actual lift in the standard sense) after that screech by Lissa.

The brunette man's eyes widened as he took in the sight of her "What are—" He didn't get the chance to say anything more, because anyone who knew Lissa should know she didn't play fair, more so after seeing the coolness-try-hard name "Stabby Death" engraved on the man's sword. Channelling her magic through the staff, she charged up the orb, and instead of using it to channel healing magic, she went for a brilliant flare of light as she closed her eyes. "ARGH!" The temporarily blinded man lost his balance just before Lissa completely won the contest of strength and sent him flying back, being caught barely in time by a woman with teal twin-tails and Mercenary uniform.

"Stop trying to take my place as the cool one!" Lissa stomped her feet as she waved her "Halberd Staff" angrily.

Readers should note that while Vaike could improvise some good stuff, thanks to his childhood as a street urchin forcing him to learn improvisation and his increasing knowledge base after learning how to read in the Shepherds giving him more material to work with, he was NOT the best at naming things. However, it was at the very least better than Lissa's input which was… "Sparkling Flashy Twin-Tailed Stabber-Chopper", which earned an output of "NO" from Vaike and an attempt to take back the weapon he'd helped her create. Clearly Lissa needed more lessons in life before handling the thing. Vaike soon found to his dismay that despite being known to be able to match up to Chrom in brute strength he was somehow unable to pry Lissa's hands off the staff. Given Chrom was known to trash swords other than Falchion with almost absurd ease and was banned from using axes for fear of collateral damage… (As a side note, Vaike was only allowed because while he too tended to damage swords quickly and sink lances too deep to be convenient, he wasn't quite as prone to overkill)

Thankfully she at least acquiesced on the subject of naming before she managed to quite drag him halfway around the camp. Vaike would REALLY prefer not to think about what might be wrong with the Princess. Sure, her father had been a genocidal madman, but at least Chrom and Emmeryn had turned out okay… Anyone who wants to remind Vaike that Chrom wasn't exactly normal either should kindly shut up and let Teach wallow in denial that a pipsqueak like Lissa had beaten him in a tug-of-war, thanks.

"Deploy a Rally, Severa!" the ashen-haired young woman battling Robin shouted at the teal-haired woman as Red engaged Chrom. While the two similar women each had a good advantage over Robin in swordplay, Chrom was gaining an edge from the interference Robin was throwing up, and so they had to mostly focus on Chrom. Neither side was showing an advantage, so they should summon their game-breaker…

"Got it!" Teal-Severa cleared her throat before beginning to sing. Her voice echoed slightly in the arena, and it was as if the entire audience was revitalized. Her team noticeably perked up, while the opponents felt sluggish and fatigued. Chrom began to slip up in his swordplay, no longer pushing Red back, and Robin was losing ground now to the ashen-haired woman. If not for the Zerg Swarm's observations he might have thought them men at first with how they pitched their voices and had short hair. That brought another question on top of the Falchions… why were they trying to pass off as male?

"Silence her!" Robin shouted. Frederick and Kellam were busy working on dodging the rapid-fire casting of the two enemy mages and dealing with the young myrmidon Lissa had previously hurled, who was now screening the two mages. Sumia was tied up by the enemy Pegasus knights, and Lissa was duelling the red-haired young woman who looked too similar to the teal-haired one to be a coincidence, being pushed back steadily due to skill disparity despite having longer reach and strength in her weapon.

Then Robin screamed as her sword broke and she didn't dodge fast enough to quite avoid the blade that was identical to Falchion in every way. It cut through her right upper arm smoothly, the stump spurting hot crimson blood all over the side of Chrom's head as she jumped back as hard and far as she could. Given her enhancements from Mom, that was pretty damned far.

 _This is why I really should had upgraded your defences more back then instead of focusing so much on blending in with other humans…_ Reflet's voice said in her head as the blooding stopped on its own within only a few seconds. _Thankfully your blood is not dangerous to humans in your current form… I'll have to make sure it stays that way during your upgrades, I suppose._

Robin was too busy panicking to care as she tried and failed to find another weapon with which to fend off the enemy so that Lissa could disengage to heal her… before she realized the bleeding had already stopped. The three Falchion users were now locked in combat as Chrom covered her retreat. "Robin! Retreat NOW and GET TREATMENT!" He yelled at her, losing ground to the two opponents while buying time.

Robin didn't answer as her health would be okay for now with the blood flow stopped. They would need to do something crazy to win though as she felt energy flood through her, more than ever before… _Remember, daughter, you can jump far higher than any normal human._ Reflet told her… and Robin looked up.

Just under a second after Robin looked up, Sumia's lance, instead of being blocked, smashed into the pigtailed girl's side like a staff, a girl who looked like she could have been Sumia's sister.

Sumia blinked, the girl had been about to block in time, but…

"Cynthia!" The other girl, who looked like this girl's almost-twin sister, but with blue hair and slightly different features, shouted in alarm, looking down.

Both Sumia and the just-named Cynthia looked down… and gawked at Robin swinging off of where she'd grabbed Cynthia's Pegasus by a hind leg. She used the instinctive kick of the mount after she grabbed it to help propel her over the heads of the two women battling Chrom and to where her very much disconnected right arm laid. She grabbed the arm, leaving the sword, and flung it at the back of one of the Falchion wielders' heads before grabbing the sword with her remaining hand and leaping back toward Cynthia.

"HOLY SHIT!" That was the target's opinion, both of the arm-flinging and the leaping attack as she barely dodged Robin's lunge toward her, getting kicked in the general area of her floating ribs for her effort. She was knocked out of the fight by the pain and likely internal damage which told her to forfeit right away. The jump carried Robin toward the enemy's Teal-haired singer… who broke off her song to block the overhead hammer-blow of the remaining chunk of Robin's sword. The girl had opened her eyes in time to see the woman arc past and land a horrific kick to Cynthia in mid-air, roused from her concentration by Cynthia's cursing.

Then Egression lunged at the other Pegasus still on the field as opposed to limping off with a wounded rider, and tried to bite at its wing (Pegasus jaws weren't strong enough to damage the necks of pegasi in standard armor, but the wings…). Then the aerial fighting resumed, Sumia gaining the edge thanks to her mount's abilities compensating for her own lesser skill.

* * *

 _This is… my power?_ Grima pondered as she prodded at the psionic (i.e. magical) matrix that permeated the area around the Arena, which was very slowly fading now that the girl wasn't singing anymore. _I guess my counterpart really was her father if she can wield my power like so… I was always a bit interested in Cordelia's butt… it was so nice and round and squeezable… pity she froze up whenever Chrom was near though, or I might had invited her over to play sometime… AHEM, of course Cordelia's face was also very nice… and her boobs didn't get in the way the way mine do, ugh… Anyhow, I'm not surprised that a male version of me might make a move on her. But to wield my power like so while out to kill the Grima of this world… how about NO._

The matrix collapsed easily enough when Grima herself was the one absorbing all of its power. Sure, the audience still felt revitalized, but the Shepherds were no longer so disadvantaged, and the future brats weren't so overwhelming anymore. Though… she had a feeling it wasn't strictly necessary as she watched this version of Robin go completely off the wall—literally since one of the Laurents just slammed her into a wall with a Rexcalibur and she just used it as an excuse to vault off and cave his hat in, knocking him out of the fight (and consciousness) abruptly despite his efforts to dodge.

* * *

 _LATER (Read: Yes, RAGE at me cutting out a lot of the last part of the action i.e. the beat-down, RAGE, I TELL YOU MWAHAHAHAHA!)_

"I never, ever expected that I would EVER be beaten by someone who had to resort to LITERALLY THROWING DOWN THEIR ARM." Red-Lucina said as she watched Red-Laurent's head injury get treated.

"Tell me about it… I think I might have a concussion from her hitting me over the head." The young man groaned as his counterpart worked on healing him, very carefully since head trauma wasn't something you could easily heal, unless you were extremely good with staves.

"And to think she shrugged it off like it was nothing… I don't think we can let Robin get Chrom in this timeline." Grey-Lucina said "Can you imagine what a clingy jealous dragon god would do in a fit of rage if she got passed over for her twin of all people? You'd think cutting her arm off would make sure she was out of the contest… for good or otherwise."

"You PLANNED that?" Red-Lucina asked incredulously.

"I didn't expect a blood rage or whatever the hell that was, alright?" Grey-Lucina snapped back "I thought she'd yield or lose consciousness and they'd teleport her out for treatment, and we'd be able to win the match… and Mom might win the contest for being this timeline's Lucina's mom."

Red-Lucina threw her hands up, then winced as her badly bruised shoulder complained, a lot. "I KNEW IT!"

Grey-Lucina rolled her eyes "As if you would have wanted anything different if Cordelia had been with them this early."

* * *

 _Same Time_

"I strongly suspect I do not wish to know why the cut end of your arm is covered by a pulsing sack of flesh that's growing outward at a rate fast enough that I can see the difference from when you left the arena." Flavia said flatly as she and Basilio greeted the Shepherds. This was after the medics had finished panicking over Robin's arm stump and Lissa (and Frederick for that matter—a foreign dignitary getting maimed while travelling with your Prince was bad for Ylissean pride) had finally been discouraged from fretting more.

"As I was saying just now to Flavia here, the Iron Throne is hers for the next few years. I hope she enjoys the seating arrangements."

"Basilio, if you ever actually set your ass on that throne as is, you're a bigger oaf than I ever thought before."

Basilio snorted "You think I'd ever put my big brown arse on that thing without a few good layers of cushions, woman? I'm actually insulted this time!"

The Iron Throne of Regna Ferox was made of, well, iron. It was very hard, and very cold to sit on, the former more so and the latter less with increasing length of time spent on the throne. There was a reason the Ruling Khans only ever sat on it for inauguration and occasional important ceremonies… It was even rumoured that the Throne, an obligation of Ruling Khans by custom, and more of an obligation the longer the Ruling Khan was in power, was designed to help discourage anyone from clinging to power for too long. It might be minor compared to the sheer piles of paperwork and the other Khan basically lounging around sipping fruity drinks while one slaved over stacks of reports, but ever bit counted for something. While Feroxi were not generally big on tradition, the Ruling Khan system had been put in place with the original making of the Iron Throne, so…

* * *

A/N: Expected fathers of children in THIS rendition (technically it's one huge, loose "harem" of Robin and Grima's but, well…)… Note that Robin ships Chrom/Sumia, Grima ships Chrom/Robin, Emmeryn ships Chrom/Grima, Chrom throws his hands up in exasperation and lets them deal with it. Most of the camp, Robin AND Grima included, are convinced that Sumia trying to back out is just her being timid, oh, and Grima is curious about homosexuality… you get where this is going.

Chrom/Robin/Grima/Sumia (otherwise Sumia would be leftovers and that would be too sad), Lissa/Henry, Sully/Gaius, Emmeryn/Frederick, Phila/Libra, Miriel/Vaike, Nowi/Donnel, Maribelle/Ricken, Panne/Kellam, Cordelia/Gregor, Tharja/Robin (You didn't think the Swarm couldn't morph a working penis, did you?), Olivia/Stahl, Cherche/Virion.

My customary review replies!

 **Psykotic101** : Future kids listed (top of chapter)! Unfortunately for your request, I believe I'm steering toward a Chrom-Robin-Grima threesome. Other than classified plot elements that I'm planning, Robin is her counterpart and Grima's okay with sharing as long as she gets to be with Chrom…

 **Gelgum Grum** : Thank you for reviewing. I know, right? Yandere Grima, slanting toward the deredere side, is the cutest!

 **Truemmerphantom** : Leviathan, methinks. Also, Kage Bunshin would just result in MORE torturous memories since there would be enough summoned that they would slack off, stretching the torture over longer mental time.

 **PLEASE REVIEW!**


	7. Recruiting Gods

A/N: Very soon we shall see why Emmeryn can walk around Ylisstol with a minimal escort, VERY SOON! On the other hand, I now feel vague regret that I didn't show her as having the sun shining out of her ass… literally. Oh well, one more skill for her to learn I guess, given how people sure treat her like the sun shines out of her ass already…

* * *

Chapter 7: Recruiting Gods

 _Feroxi Capital, September 22, Swarm Year 0_

Given the size of Ylisse, one might wonder why, other than the Pegasus knights and town/city guard garrisons, the Shepherds, a squad of a dozen or so people, were enough to patrol the entire Halidom to a reasonable degree (or had been until the latest outbreak of Plegian infiltrations). The answer was Frederick. More specifically, the answer was FRED, namely the Fitness Regime of Eternal Doom, or Damnation, depending on who you asked. While Sumia was a new recruit, to have survived FRED without dropping out said a LOT, and as a Pegasus Knight she could cover a lot of ground quickly.

The actual reason was somewhat classified, namely the fact that when Sully, Kellam, Stahl or Maribelle went out on patrol, they could go it alone just fine. It was mostly when Chrom or Lissa went out that Frederick insisted on a squad just in case. Sully's family culinary weapons were banned by international treaty, yes, but there was nothing in the treaty about using it or its effects on forces of no national affiliation within Ylissean borders. Kellam was under some sort of permanent hex he somehow had cast over himself, according to what Miriel had to date after years of trying to spot and analyze him. It made him almost impossible to detect, which meant brigand leaders (and members) had a nasty tendency to explode into chunks without anyone ever spotting who did it. Most bandits only had to see such a thing once or twice before deciding quitting or even jail was better for their life expectancy. Stahl was so average when he actually tried (though still good-looking) that he could blend into a crowd, not as well as Kellam but still enough to snipe bandits handily enough without them ever noticing him. Maribelle's Parasol-Fu… had to be seen to be believed.

In other words, the Shepherds were obviously (to outsiders) not quite as human as they'd all prefer to pretend—AHEM, BELIEVE, YES, BELIEVE. THAT was how they managed to keep Ylisse reasonably clear of bandits, despite there only being a few of them. However, now that Plegia was acting up, it was time to bulk up the military, including the Shepherds. Maybe it was time to recall Cordelia from her position in the Pegasus Knights back to the Shepherds? After all she'd been sent out initially to help deal with border security in a similar role to Sumia in the Shepherds (doing the work of a squad by herself), but hadn't been recalled following Sumia's grounding.

The Khans, after the formalities of handing over the reins were rather interested in Robin and her mentions of the Zerg Swarm. They however had to first find the Shepherds, who'd disappeared after greetings at the end of the tournament. Instead of hanging around to watch the festivities and Flavia get her ass half frozen off on the Iron Throne during the formalities, apparently they were all running around looking for someone looking just like Robin?

Please note that Flavia disclaims this search for Robin as NOT in fact procrastinating further with dealing with the inevitable wheelbarrows' worth of procrastinated less-than-critical paperwork for the Ruling Khan from the week before the tournament. She also casually denies accusations that last time she'd decided to not put up a serious fight for the simple reason of getting wind that Basilio had procrastinated for more than a month. Basilio had NOT been amused at Flavia informing the crowd before the fight that time that while they would have a good contest still, she had instructed her side to bury Basilio in paperwork that he'd brought upon himself.

The crowd on the other hand had had a good long laugh, more so because Flavia had hired a circus from Chon'sin to throw Lon'qu off as much as possible… you'd be surprised how good swordfighters acrobats made. Surprisingly, Basilio HAD appreciated the extra pocket change obtained from what followed, because the Khans had to rule with dignity and appropriate conservation of funds. Flavia had set up an arrangement charging a token fee for viewing him spending some time digging the Iron Throne out from under the paper towers he'd heaped on it (planning to ambush Flavia with the mounds) without ruining anything. Needless to say Basilio would not be procrastinating so badly again on paperwork.

* * *

 _Meanwhile…_

Without the distraction of the other combatants and her own power being thrown around by that brat who was in a sense her daughter, Grima's mind had decided to catch up immediately after the match to the scene of Chrom battling two Lucinas.

 _Deep breath… He wasn't a Risen, and those two would never fight to kill him… They didn't even have his blue hair and eyes… Yeah that's why we didn't go nuts and accidentally murder them for being almost like when our daughter killed Darling… Deep Breath again… Oh who are we kidding? We didn't go nuts and tear them apart for the same reason that we didn't just blast all the brats to shreds when Lucina came to kill her father for good back then. Chrom would have been so disappointed. By… well, by me, I suppose… anyhow, by Grima, I'm a terrible mother. I… I didn't kill my own daughter not just because I loved her, but mostly because her father would have been upset. I… this obsession with Chrom can't be healthy, but… I can't stop myself. My Darling would be so disappointed, but… this is one thing I can't recover from._

The sight of Falchion flashing in the light as it descended again and again toward Chrom, even though he was alive and well, had brought back some nasty memories. Even though these Lucinas were different from Grima's daughter, they still looked similar enough beyond the colouring that Grima had been barely holding the flashbacks at bay during the match. She was thankful that she could take her mind up admiring Sumia's Pegasus in this timeline, and listening to Lissa unknowingly explain EXACTLY where Owain's madness came from.

 _If I could recover from that… from this… from his first death… I wouldn't be here. I would be back there… with my daughters, my son, grieving but recovering from our loss… and continuing, fixing our country… without Chrom._ Her mind rejected that reality automatically and substituted her own, just as it had years ago when she first launched that apocalypse to pressure Naga into helping her come here. _I suppose this is what it means to be a dragon demigod, more or less, trying out being human. When you lose your anchor to humanity… it washes away like dust on the wind. If I had more years, decades, to prepare and slowly accept the fact that he wouldn't live forever as I would despite my manipulations of his body once he grew older… I could have accepted it, but to lose him so soon after bonding… Wait… would I be doing this Chrom justice if I used him as a rebound of sorts? As a replacement? No… no, if he's anything like Darling, and he is, certainly, then it would be the gravest injustice to treat him as any less precious than he is._

The epiphany was crushing. _I really didn't think this through as much as I should have. I came here to a world that still had Chrom in it, believing myself ready to accept his choices in women… but to know that I don't deserve another chance, that I cannot allow myself another chance… that I must have no chance… it makes me so angry… No, losing my mind to anger was what made me come here, instead of simply healing Chrom up as a Risen until I could persuade Naga to help return him to full life. That could have made everything work out, but by the time I figured it out it was too late to use the better plan…_

The cleaning crew were too intelligent to go near the crazy-looking lady with the lewd clothes and giant sign—though put aside for now—who was standing there emitting an intensely dark aura. (Grima was completely unaware of how closely that description matched one of her old friends.) Well, actually, they couldn't go near her, because the aura of darkness she was pushing out was too complete, practically a shadowy, translucent dome of sorts. Yandere internal monologuing was dangerous to the environment. Fortunately, Grima was considerate enough to put up a barrier so it didn't damage their souls.

On the other hand, Chrom, who was approaching the woman, imitated a warrior whose legend crossed from the Outrealms long ago, and whose name was still whispered in the darkest of times to this day. As Robin noted to Frederick, who was being held at bay by the powerful dark aura. "Isn't that manoeuvre Chrom's pulling called 'Leeroy Jenkins'?"

"Unfortunately, milord is quite sure that if Grima… if that is indeed who she is…" Frederick looked rather critically at Robin, who grimaced in acknowledgement of their physical similarities. "…he's sure that if she actually wished him harm, she'd have squashed us like bugs at her leisure if the strength of her aura is any indicator." He tensed suddenly, because Chrom had stopped in front of the woman. He would rather have been the one to test the waters, but the barrier had kept him and even Robin out, while Chrom simply walked through like it didn't exist. In fact, it seemed to be healing up the few bruises and such on his person that Lissa hadn't had time to get before they had to run off to find Grima.

"Are you alright, miss?" Hand wave in front of face… she blinked, then blinked again… "Hey?" His sword was drawn backhand by his left hand in a guard far too late to have blocked anything by the time he heard the hum of advanced thunder magic.

Grima blinked at him, having grabbed and immobilized him by the right shoulder almost without though, then looked down at the Thoron she'd shaped almost instinctively and where she held the bolt stable in her hand, ready to impale… some… thing… "Huh?" The magic dissipated instantly "Oh… oh gods… no, no, no, not again. NONONONOAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" She let go before she got to the second repeat of "no", clutching her head, and jumped back, falling backward over a couple rows of seats on impact but not caring, since her body was tougher than that. Curling up into a small ball she held her knees to her chest (not a tall order given how she was hardly flat, though of slightly less impressive proportions than Robin) and rocked back and forth, sobbing "No, no… no… I can't… I can't kill you again…"

"I'm not aware that I've died yet, much less been killed by you." Chrom informed her dryly once she recovered enough from her fit to simply stare at him over her knees, tears still streaming down from her eyes.

Grima opened her mouth to try to say something, but no sound came out, then she tried again… and again… and then again before it finally worked "My counterpart in this world told you who… or _what_ I was and you're not trying to stab me with your dragon-spanker yet?"

Chrom raised an eyebrow "Dragon spanker?"

Grima flushed red, he'd just be scared off if she told him what sort of play they'd done where she came from. Falchion responded to the user's intent to cut or not cut, and Chrom was skilled enough to avoid hitting anything with even the dulled edge when he was trying to smack something with the flat of the blade. Given it stung her skin with magical crackling on contact even when she just put her hand on the surface, when experimenting… _AHEM… Inner peace, inner peace… no steam from ears please… even though I licked the flat of the blade for fun once and ended up with my tongue tingling for hours._ "Uh… long story, maybe I'll tell you later."

Chrom sat down in one of the arena seats next to the one Grima had curled up in front of. "So, Robin says your signature looks like Grima's. Would you like to explain why you're… uh… not doing whatever it is Fell Dragons do?" Let it never be said that Chrom was a good conversationalist, at least, not in the verbal aspect, though given his action of sitting down companionably he wasn't bad at physical communications.

"I've already done that stuff, I wanted to try out being human for once, see what the big fuss with manaketes and all was about. It didn't work out, so I came here by way of coaxing Naga into helping. I've already absorbed this world's Grima, he will never trouble you again. You need not worry anymore!" She realized she was babbling. She'd been preparing for this moment for so long, but now that she was actually in front of him she was practically a quivering wreck! "I just wanted to come here… try to help out in the next couple wars… live in peace for once…"

"Look, I might be considered about as dense as can be, but I'm not stupid enough to not notice your huge sign and the… ah… choice of outfit." Chrom reddened slightly on looking closer at the outfit. It seemed the "flaps" were actually decorative and didn't actually work, though the tight outfit still left little to the imagination and he could see she wasn't wearing a bra under that tight shirt… "You don't need to be so shy, just be honest and we'll get along fine. I hope you're agreeable to that?" She nodded so fast Chrom could almost feel his own teeth chattering together just looking at the speed. "Give me your hand." He helped her up.

She smiled, looking down at their joined hands… until she realized that he was trying to let go, and complied with him. "Just like old times?"

Chrom had a funny suspicion, but he needed to check. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I was meditating in a field near South Town when we first met. That you thought I was sleeping, despite my meditation as an Earth Dragon requiring I lay down for maximum contact with the ground." It also meant lying on her back, because big boobs were troublesome both in that it hurt to lay on them and they got in the way of contact with the ground during meditation. Grima had often cursed her decision to make sure her body had big breasts, but at least it was a hell of a lot better than Validar's grossly inbred and deformed abomination of a body structure.

It was also amusing to watch men's reactions to them bouncing around… not to mention her body could more than handle the effort to deal with them, and dialling up sensitivity made for some good times. She wondered briefly whether or not those two Lucinas she'd met earlier would explode in anger if they learnt how endowed her Lucina was. Yes, most likely… though how they ended up so flat despite Sumia having an okay chest and Chrom's family hardly being flat (Emmeryn, for example, and Lissa after she grew up)… maybe it was just genetic bad luck. She strictly forbade her daughter from flunking the roll of luck as badly as those two had, so her Lucina didn't have those problems… though admittedly Grima did dial her daughter back a good fraction from having basically melons attached to her chest. Sure, she was a tall woman, but they did get in the way sometimes.

She'd left her Lucina with a parting gift though. Since she was no longer in that world, the Grima bloodline didn't confer anything anymore except an improved affinity for Dark Magic… and the tingling of the Mark of Grima when channelling Dark Magic. Her Lucina's Mark was splashed across her torso with the joint at her navel, one pair of eyes under her breasts and another pair forming her areolae. This meant the Exalt over in that reality had a bit of a guilty pleasure in the form of channelling but not actually casting Dark Magic on lonely nights… or mornings… or whatever other time of day for that matter.

While reviewing things she would and could MOST CERTAINLY NEVER say to Chrom, Grima had unknowingly blushed bright red again, suddenly fretting about if her lewdness would become a point of aversion for the blue-haired Prince next to her. Ugh, it was really hard for a dragon demigod who'd been in limbo for a thousand years, and not had many opportunities before that, to NOT be practically a nymphomaniac, especially given she could cast spells to give her lovers additional endurance without damaging their bodies. She had no doubt that had she gone for a male human form instead of experimenting that she would probably have formed a harem of every single woman in the Shepherds simply because while her spells would have kept their bodies' endurances up she wouldn't be so sure about their minds being safe from Grima's immense libido.

Chrom in the meantime was finishing up his chuckling at the thought of such similarities in timelines. Then the man spoke "While Frederick would probably go bald in sheer exasperation at this, I'm going off the assumption that if you were going to do anything I wouldn't still be here. You could easily have cut me down just now." He watched her face practically melt into depression again before he decided he should stop attempting to practically give himself a foot-job by shoving both feet so far down his mouth they were coming out of his ass. Reaching out with his right hand he gently cupped her chin. She allowed him to lift her head to look him in the eye again "I'm sorry, that was insensitive of me, to bring up a painful memory like that."

"Bah, you're just like him… he actually told me once that he didn't see me as a lady before he realized that I was holding an empty, hot skillet, which would have made for a great bludgeoning tool if I'd forgotten it was hot and wasn't too reluctant to hit him as a result."

Chrom snorted at the thought. Yeah, he could see himself saying something like that "I think the other me meant you were open and a real friend, not like those ladies at the court who would kiss anyone's ass, maybe literally, to climb the social ladder."

"Yeah, he meant that too."

"I'm surprised, Grima. I thought you'd be coming on stronger given, well…" he waved his hand at the sign that the cleaners hadn't taken away yet due to having enough of it inside her barrier that they didn't want to risk touching it.

"I wanted to make my intent clear, but now that you're here I'm… I'm really nervous. And I don't want to seem to be coming on too strong in case I scare you off or something…"

Chrom laughed "Ah I'm not frightened so easily by women who are trying to get into my pants. I'd prefer to redirect their efforts to more productive endeavours, given I'm really not looking for a wife yet…"

Grima frowned "You don't have the Fan-Girl Legion in this world?"

"The what?"

"The legion of fan-girls who stalk you whenever you are outside the castle in Ylisstol? Ranging from nobility within the inner walls to peasantry in the outer walls and beyond?"

Chrom frowned to match Grima's expression "That would explain why Emmeryn lit up her sword a few times in the early times of me going outside with her… among other things." Such as bringing Maribelle and her Parasol-Fu, and Sumia with her impact resistance, into the Shepherds, and Sully too to discourage anyone trying to invite him to meals, ever, since she'd surely bring something he could bring to the event. That had happened after Sumia's cooking turned out painfully popular and despite her being nudged not so subtly/gently into liking Chrom and warding off other girls, they would get invited to dinners and such. Those stopped the instant after Sully was announced to be joining the Shepherds, despite it being half a year before the formal induction time.

Grima's mind was practically blown "Emmeryn has a sword? Wow, this world really is different from where I came from…"

"She doesn't use it very often, but yeah, she has a sword… one unique to her, which she made herself." Chrom shrugged.

"So, um, I'm guessing you'll be okay with me coming along with you guys? I can help in battles if you would have me?" _Ugh, why so shy, Grima? It's like you're a blushing virgin or something… oh wait, back when I was a virgin by human standards I didn't ever blush, right…_

"Sure, just don't sneak into my tent or something, alright?" Chrom grinned at her.

"Not unless you want to test if you have the same weaknesses my husband did."

"Hah, well that's an awkward thought… right, do you have the ring my parents had made when I was born?" That might be important as the ring did carry authority, and Frederick would be _so_ butthurt at him if he didn't at least ask about it…

"Ah, right, um, I left it with my daughter back in the world I came from. She deserved better from her mother than to live through an apocalypse just because I didn't accept your death… at my hands."

Chrom thought for a moment about heartbreak as a reason for a dragon to go nuts. It sounded more reasonable than half the legends he'd seen… On the other hand, having the Fell Dragon of all beings being half-bashful while shoving her adoration in one's face was HIGHLY disconcerting… "Well, you can come along, and we'll see how things go. I hope you'll get along well with everyone."

"I hope so too… and I hope I can remember these aren't the people I left behind. There are so many differences already… where the hell did Sumia get a Pegasus able to do those moves and trail a RAINBOW?"

Chrom had a feeling he was going to have to invest rather considerable effort to explain things. "Ah, right, if you came from another world, do you know anything about the teenagers who were on the other side from us?"

"They didn't talk to you? Then… it's not my place to interfere. They need to find their comrades before they can be ready to intervene, I have already taken measures to ensure their safety through my power. I'm sorry, Chrom, but there are some things… I wouldn't want to pressure anyone… I'm sorry." She felt horrible keeping the Lucinas separate from their father until they felt comfortable, but to make Chrom focus on Sumia and Cordelia instead of herself and maybe Robin if her counterpart was interested was unacceptable. Even though she felt bad for being a Jealous Clingy Girl, she wasn't willing to renounce her ways, she never would be, she suspected.

"Ah it's okay. They didn't seem to be interested in actually killing us down there, and they did help fight the Risen in the forest shortly after we found Robin. Let them walk their own path then. They will contact us again when they are ready, I am sure."

"No doubt they will… and I know them, I know who they are and what their goals are. I know they would have no motivation to do anything but aid us, though they might prefer to do it from the shadows for now… and perhaps it is best to let them stay there until they are ready, as you said." She finally registered the repulsion field she'd been throwing up and coughed into her fist in embarrassment as she began collapsing it "Um, I might seem a bit emotionally erratic sometimes, Chrom, so I hope you might pardon my sudden swings from joyful to depressed…"

"I've seen much worse quirks than that. It is par for the course among us Shepherds, you'll fit right in."

 _Yeah, just like I fit in last time… I swear I won't freak out on seeing this Sumia though. Awakening from my descent into madness quite enough to realize I'd half-eaten her alive out of anger that she'd had more time with you before I was on the scene was horrible…_ Grima knew she'd never be able to forget the look on the other woman's face and the taste in her mouth when she'd realized suddenly that she was face-first, buried in the other woman's abdomen and chowing down on the other woman's entrails while she still lived. Fortunately for her daughter's reign she'd been able to memory-wipe the older generation regarding their deaths and un-life as Risen before she managed to reverse the apocalypse and restore them all to life.

The younger generation she'd left behind weren't quite aware of exactly how she'd slaughtered some of their parents. Severa at the very least would probably have launched a revolt if she knew how Grima had used her magic to force Cordelia to stay alive and conscious while flaying her and making a stuffed specimen out of her skin. The redhead had always had better skin and hair, and in Grima's opinion was better-looking, so she'd forced the woman to take a good look at herself before turning her into a Risen (regenerating the skin with that process). As for how Cordelia could be prettier than a dragon demigod who decided to try out human form, there were limits on human-standards femininity that an originally male Earth Dragon were willing to put up with while designing herself, out of pride for traditionally looking intimidating if nothing else!

Grima later had to heal herself when she came back into a phase of relative sanity among her drastic, unstable mental swings that had occurred starting a few months after Chrom's death and ending a few months before she managed to come back. The reason she had to heal herself was because she was so horrified by what she'd done to her former friend just for having loved Chrom that she'd ripped her own face off as a vague sort of penance. She also mentally beat herself into accepting that coming here, Chrom could end up with any other woman, or women.

"Did it go well?" Grima heard her own voice ask… no, wait, it was not hers, though they would sound the same to outsiders. It was her counterpart, Robin's voice.

"Well, I'll be tagging along to help however I can. Nice to meet you, I go by the human name of Robin." Grima said. "Though I suspect we might want to just call me Grim or something."

"…That would probably be best, yes… I presume you know all the Shepherds?" Chrom asked as they reached Frederick, who was facepalming, not even bothering to give advice against the new recruit for all the good it would do.

* * *

Cynthia hadn't gotten her friendly, cheerful personality from nowhere, since while Sumia had confidence problems she was still friendly and cheery enough to be among the first to greet the newcomer. She did not expect the newcomer's response to be to stare at her for a few moments before gagging and turning away. "I'm sorry, you just remind me of someone I used to know."

"Well, I heard Robin say your energy was like Grima's… and it was pretty obvious from your talking with Chrom that you came from some apocalyptic timeline that you fixed at some point. I'm guessing you killed me at some point?" Sumia ventured, having trailed Chrom and Robin closely enough to catch the words they'd shared. Admittedly the entire body of the Shepherds that were present on this mission had heard, and Lissa's grin was really disturbing to look at given how insanely wide it was… "Did I at least die heroically?"

Grima stared "…You're a lot less prone to denial of reality than the Sumia I knew…"

Sumia blushed at the bluntness pointing out a weakness she still sometimes liked to indulge in "One does not simply survive Egression's antics, more so after he ate Sully's flying spaghetti monster and became what he is today, rainbow trail and all, without realizing one's reality is a lot more insane and heroic than any story one might happen to read."

Then Grima noted the shield peeking out from around the edges of Sumia's body "Speaking of which, that shield is a lot bigger than a standard Pegasus Knight shield…"

Sumia grimaced "While Egression was grounded as Miriel investigated the rainbow and other effects, I fought as a Soldier-class on the ground, with lance and shield. It doesn't get in the way as much as I'd thought, and Egression seems fine with the extra weight, so…"

"Right, before I forget, don't start on heroic deaths and such with me. That attitude could get you killed, and I reject the possibility of such a thing happening again while I'm around." Sumia shuffled a couple steps back at the intense aura and nodded quickly in response.

"Seems you're mingling well enough already, Grima." Robin cut in before Grima could get too overbearing.

"I thought I said to call me Grim?"

Robin shrugged "It wouldn't hurt to encourage people to be more tolerant toward each other by revealing the Plegian god walks with us as a friend. Besides, between you and my Swarm we can basically force people into tolerance if need be, and within a couple generations people will tire of appearing tolerant while actually being hateful, and eventually become the mask."

"You're sounding eviler than me."

"I try too hard sometimes." Robin winked at the face that was practically identical to hers.

* * *

FORECAST: "The path ahead is fraught with peril. But I will do all I can to keep it stable… keep you safe. I'm not so foolish to think this will absolve me of my sins. A few lives hardly balances millions… but I would have the world know that I have changed. And you shall be my example." Guess who (EASY).

"Yea verily, though I charge through the shadows in the valley of death, I shall fear no evil, for I am a human-sized mass, atop a Pegasus-sized mass, of FUCK YOU." Sumia, after Walhart.

* * *

A/N: Review Replies!

 **Truemmerphantom** : Walhart has rough counterparts of Rally Heart and Rally Spectrum via speeches and presence combination, and is super-human compared to anyone not in the Shepherds. That's it. The Swarm will be OP as shit once they stop being concerned about terrifying the humans into doing something stupid. And the Shepherds here are super-humans. Hence Naga talking about sending the two groups of kids to an "EZ-mode" timeline. Leviathans will indeed be associated with rainbows (remember the mention in A/N talking about unlocking the "Ultrachromatic Beam Generator" through Sully?), but no exploding occurs for their case, ever… Wait, you just gave me an idea… towing a fake leviathan (actually just a sack of gas) over the battlefield to deflate enemy morale by blotting out the sun… then having it release a carpet of Banelings that had been clinging onto the underside…

 **Psykotic101** : Glad you like it.

 **Gelgum Grem** : I see you haven't read my past works (mostly taken down now) because review replies are a habit of mine unless it's really overwhelming (see Army of One for example). Yeah, I'm going for a happy ending for basically the whole crew (except Gangrel and Walhart because they can both go die in a hole). Even Aversa will get a good ending… the only exception from the good guys I can think of is Tiki, and even that's a technicality. Does your mother's alternate universe rival regularly harassing you FOREVER to join her and her other companions in her bed sometime count as a less than ideal ending?

REVIEW!


	8. Slavering, Etc

A/N: If you thought Grima wasn't almost-hopelessly scarred for life mentally by what she'd done to her friends and more than that the things she'd forced Chrom (as a Risen) to do in her episodes of madness (e.g. swinging away from Tranquil to much worse Yandere types), you must be delusional. If not for the hopes of helping Chrom, she'd probably have found a way to commit suicide… not that she hadn't already tried during her phases of sanity. Details will come in time.

 **I hope the extreme juggling of humor, memes, and guro** (as in gore intended to be arousing, though we haven't gotten to quite that point yet) **isn't too off-putting or confusing.**

* * *

Chapter 8: Slavering, Etc.

 _Feroxi Capital, September 22, Swarm Year 0_

It should be a surprise to absolutely no one that the Feroxi Khans were very interested in the Swarm once the concept was explained to them. However, they did note that the Overmind surely couldn't have much of a human mindset due to propensity of humans for descend into insane megalomania when given so much power.

On the other hand, there were a few, uh, problems. "What do you mean we can't spare the troops to deal with a major bandit band cutting off road traffic to the northeastern coast?" Basilio demanded.

"Look, mobilizing the troops quickly enough to get them down into Ylisse and deployed properly, with logistics and all, is straining our veteran pool, you know, the officers of various ranks who are needed to keep an army coherent and in line?" Flavia grumbled. "You think I wouldn't want to help my own people as soon as possible? I'm going to have to ask for some of your forces to help out, or, alternatively, ask for a demonstration of the Swarm."

"I'm wondering if this was intended to basically only be a matter of demonstrating the Swarm as opposed to you actually being short on officers." Robin said, grinning.

Flavia laughed "I like your bluntness! We really are short on officers in East Ferox with the organizing that'll have to be done to move security forces into Ylisse before the winter, but I'm sure Basilio would have appreciated a trip out of the Capital to take care of the issue with his elite guard forces just to get a bit of exercise. Of course, if you're agreeable, I'm sure he'd like to stretch his legs and tag along to take a look at how the Swarm works." Basilio just nodded agreement.

"We'd be interested in a demonstration too." Chrom said.

Robin shrugged "Very well."

* * *

"You know, when you said they were slavering beasts, I thought it was a pun on fish and fishing versus slavers and slavering." Basilio observed.

"Well without fatter lip structures it's hard to keep saliva from dripping whenever they roar or otherwise open their jaws wide enough… and yes I did intent for it to be a pun."

"That makes sense." Basilio looked closely at the scythes of the "Hydralisks" as Robin called them. "Are you sure their blades are up to the job though?"

"You'd need an enchanted shield or weapon to hold one off for even a moment." In other words at least Silver-rank weapons. Silver might be a soft metal normally, but it was pretty good at magic retention… not to mention etching runes for enchantments on it was much easier than with normally harder metals. As for why no one used gold, well, it was just a bit too gaudy. Sure, nobility tended toward gaudy things, but even then there were things that everyone could agree on to be just tasteless… and it wasn't exactly practical since the life span was even lower than for silver weapons. You can guess which explanation the nobility liked to use to act holier-than-thou and which one was the real reason.

AHEM. So, there were reasons customizations (Forging) for weapons were far more expensive than buying the standard, tried and true types, and it was making sure the runes took well (in the case of more basic weapons), or didn't clash with existing rune arrays (as with Killer, Silver, or Brave weapons). More critically, the basic weapons had fairly wide tolerances on how their runes were etched, and rune-etching was a difficult task, while enhancing them related to the base runes, so given said variance…

As a side note, it was commonly thought that the variance was an excuse by the various blacksmiths' guilds to keep Forging prices high. The collusion would be maintained by the fact that each smith usually had only a few variations, so a guild trying to secretly enforce uniformity to undercut competitors could be sniffed out. They would be punished by everyone else flooding the market with cheaper products due to lack of need for such conformity (and thus lower skill requirements for smiths). However, this common practice was tolerated due to the merchants paying their (high) taxes properly and thus none of the world powers being quite dumb enough to mess with the economy too much. The last bunch of morons who screwed with economics TOO badly, well, the most iconic bunch at least, was Jugdral back before the First Faith War. The less said about that crapshoot, the better, as far as many people were concerned. Historians and others concerned about repeating history tended to disagree, strongly and for obvious reasons.

* * *

What had begun as a relatively typical bandit roadblock operation went to hell in seconds as more than a dozen slavers dropped, skewered by supersonic needle spines fired from far enough away that the shooters could not be spotted quickly enough before a second wave struck the bandit band. Then there was the loud rustling of the underbrush as something… no, several of something… crashed through it, followed by thunderous roars as the semi-serpentine creatures used their powerful tails to move forth into close combat.

It was over pathetically quickly.

"According to Mother's information, from the Swarm's psionic memory, Hydralisk scythes are capable of cutting through thick vehicle armour… right, this planet doesn't commonly have self-propelled vehicles yet." Robin said while examining how her Hydralisks' scythes didn't even have kinks in them from cutting through slaver axes and such "Their carapaces are also capable of withstanding rifle ammunition easily enough… though this world doesn't have that tech yet either… actually, this world has been stagnant for a very long time technologically ever since the invention of runes and magic… maybe it's time to change that before you all run out of resources like tech-level-accessible ore deposits and end up going extinct because of resource depletion. Maybe the Swarm can help with that."

The group currently not occupied inspecting the battle scene and salvaging gear off the former bandits, namely Basilio, Chrom, Grima, Frederick and Robin herself, looked at each other awkwardly before Robin muttered "I can't believe I just said that."

"A species built for war, and well-built too, complete with a collective intelligence with ability to delegate. I'm envious." Grima pouted as cutely as her very adult form would allow. If she'd been shorter, say a big-breasted loli, then it would have probably come across as cutesy, but the half-lidded eyes and general posture (and her very adult size) gave it a sultry feel instead.

"Why thank you, though didn't you say you had zombie-raising abilities? You could raise an army from the people we'll have to cut through for this war and any that follow."

"I'd rather not use it to raise an army this time around, I did enough of it last time. This time, I want to use my abilities to return slain soldiers to their families."

"…Are you actively trying to encourage necrophilia?" Lissa asked since she'd come close and heard Grima say she wanted to partly resurrect people to keep families intact. Cue much staring at the twin-tailed princess "Corpses don't have refractory periods, right? Maybe the repeated sex from novels and comics might actually be possible now!"

Grima was trying to not think of how she'd killed Lissa back in her world during one of the insane phases of her temper tantrum. Chrom should have hated her for it, but he'd expressed a resignation and understanding that had hurt so much worse during one of her lucid phases. "…Frederick, is this how your world's Lissa usually behaves?" Because if it was, then the rather erotic death she'd given her Lissa would have been so much more appropriate for this one instead. She suddenly caught that thought and pounced on it with _NO, BAD THOUGHTS GRIMA, NOBODY DESERVES TO DIE LIKE THAT. NEVER AGAIN. But… but the way she'd spasm in climax with her eyes rolled back into her head every time we drove into her was just so HOT… NO. SSSSSTTTOOOOOOOOPPPPPPP!_

Frederick seemed to have more or less given up the ghost on trying to suppress Lissa's apparent perversion. Either that or he was still too orally agape to reply. "Besides the supernatural strength which I last noted was enough to bridal carry me in my armor, milady does express an unusual amount of verbal perversion."

"That's sexy…" Grima felt the eyes on her "AHEM! So, uh, I'll raise these guys for the army, but I won't launch the process of returning them to true life. They'll just be husks acting as auxiliary troops or cannon fodder to tie the enemy down and deflate their morale. Is that alright with you? They wouldn't stand a chance against your Swarm anyways, and bandits don't get to live twice."

Purple tendrils of energy were streaming off the purple-eyed woman (Robin had red eyes) into the corpses, and the less damaged ones began to cobble themselves back together before getting up and lining up in neat rows. Faintly steaming entrails withdrawing into their bodies as their skins turned ashen, with glowing purple veins under their skin. Grima noticed Lissa wiggling her hips and rubbing her thighs together and mentally shivered at how disturbing it was. Could her perverse killing of the woman in her timeline have somehow followed her here and infected this Lissa? She was supposed to be a cheerful ball of sunshine, not… like a female counterpart of Henry in bloodlust… "After the Plegian War, Valmese War, and more likely than not Grimleal War, those of you I deem to have only taken up banditry out of desperation shall be returned to life and employed adequately. This I swear. Those who did not after I look into your minds and souls… shall not."

While she was spewing what sounded righteous from her mouth, her mind was turning into a cesspit of debauched ideas, for example… _Hmm, it would be wonderful to have both Lissa and Chrom in my bed, maybe I could even convince Lissa to muscle Chrom into trying incest play if she's really super-strong here, I know Chrom's abnormal once he gets his bloodline going but maybe Lissa can outdo him based on a higher baseline, with my help… BY GRIM—uh, MYSELF THAT'S A SHITTY IDEA! Chrom would definitely come to hate me if I persuaded his little sister to rape him… wait what am I thinking, I thought we weren't going to pursue Chrom again, because of how we betrayed him so, so badly, and how he's too good for us?_ The lucid thoughts passed with the coming of… _Speaking I wonder how much his penis would do to me with Aether active, that sounds positively decadent… too bad he couldn't use it anymore by the time I thought of the idea, after he died. Too bad it was only then that I knew my body could withstand something like a Luna activated inside me._ At the very least, Grima had had the decency to not force Lissa and Chrom as Risen to have hot incestuous sex to amuse her. She'd at least had that decency even during her less sane phases, and for that she was deeply glad.

Robin spectated and watched the Psionic aspect as much as she could through the Overlords above them, while Grima was staring off into nowhere while probably analysing the souls of the Risen she'd just reanimated. Though, if she was reanimating them, why were the chunks on the ground still glowing faintly instead of being discarded, or being sued for extra biomass? _Wait…_ sniff, sniff… _was that… yes, yes it was._ "The air is ripe with the stench of bitches." She muttered to herself. Maybe she and Grima weren't so different after all, both were obscenely lewd and easily aroused… and both sensed something very sexy in Chrom and Lissa. Robin had thought Emmeryn was even sexier than Chrom for some reason, but she was mindful of the fact that Frederick, who was a decent man, might have something with Emmeryn and that Emmeryn was most likely not interested in women.

Basilio and Frederick were examining the Risen creation process rather closely… though still so far behind Miriel that Lissa's opinion of them was "Stop ogling Miriel's ass!"

The two men looked at each other, then realized exactly who was more or less bent over in front of them while humming to herself occasionally as she took notes. Both immediately decided to shift further away by studying the next Risen away from Miriel's subject, they really hadn't taken real note of the scientist. Frederick palmed his face while Basilio was shaking in silent laughter while he observed this other Risen rather closely. You'd think they'd notice given the hat and robes, but, well, Miriel was studying a Risen standing BETWEEN the ones the men were studying, so maybe they'd just paid more attention to the Grima-animated zombies than to the scientist's plump rump. Miriel in the meantime rolled her eyes at Lissa's antics, though admittedly were she to reproduce Frederick and Basilio were both powerful, intelligent and strong, so they wouldn't be bad mate choices.

As a side note, it is strongly suspected that Emmeryn and Lissa chose the females of the original Shepherds candidates as attempted matchmaking for Chrom. While Emmeryn herself was too busy to get married and it would be a major political issue, she DID have hobbies. As another side note, it would later become widely known that Emmeryn's hobbies were, on average, far more DANGEROUS than matchmaking for her younger brother. The details are not a story for this particular time or place. Nor did her siblings know of said hobbies. All that should be said about said hobbies for the present moment was that they brought a lot of money into the Ylissean treasury.

In the currently still shallow snow of northeast Ferox at the present time, there was near silence. Chrom had decided to visit the local villages with Robin and Grima and was busy talking to a redheaded merchant at the nearest set of village gates.

Said silence was broken by Lissa's shout of "Grima, can you make these Risen put on a strip dance? I think Freddy, Basilio and Miriel are a little too interested in them and could use a show! Oh, and can we test their durability?"

Much sighing followed (Grima agreed), along with Frederick and Basilio averting their eyes while Miriel tried clinical testing of Risen functionality. It was very soon discovered that unlike Robin's depredations back on the North Road, these Risen personally animated directly by Grima's power did not in fact disintegrate when one ripped their balls off, or even their heads, as Lissa did with one. In fact, they regenerated lost body parts after an energy infusion from Grima, with the woman explaining "I have hold of their souls, and the worthy shall be returned to life in bodies that will be altered to be theirs if need be. Those unworthy will be consumed for energy. Do not worry, these bodies currently lack souls completely, unlike the Risen popping up all over the place randomly, which still have vestiges of their original souls, twisted and warped…"

In other news, Grima had an awkward encounter with Lissa that night which involved her confiscating one severed Risen penis and one Risen head. Apparently the young Princess was a lot more adventurous than one might think, despite the girl's claims that they were supposed to be a prank on whoever woke her up to see how far she could push Frederick with rumours and perverse commentary or actions before he cracked.

* * *

FORECAST: "Big sisters! It seems we're celebrities in this realm! I got these life-size pillows of you two, and a bunch of little books depicting you too… though all the books have you having blue hair like Daddy…" Young Lucina, to Red and Grey, Summer Scramble, trying to run interference for the Shepherds who were buying sex bots modelled after themselves from a different store operated by a more advanced civilization (e.g. Cybran Nation).

"The children of my counterpart… are a stripper duet… Please excuse me while I go hang myself with my ribbon." Olivia, encountering counterparts from an Olivia/Robin world "performing".

* * *

A/N: **Am starting on writing something absolutely nuts as a Fire Emblem/Supreme Commander crossover.** Dostya fires up the Recall system regardless of it not working properly, believing it a better choice to try than to wait to die (Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance 4th Mission). She ends up showing up (badly damaged ACU and all) at the Outrealm Gate and decides to investigate the local civilization… Subsequently she decides that, after establishing that she is cut off from the Cybran Nation until further notice and years of isolation watching the world move past, that she is obligated to jolt the locals out of thousands of years of technological stagnation before resource depletion and collapse of their civilization can occur. For fuck's sake, Jugdral is circa 500 years before Archanea, Marth was born in 588 by the Archanean calendar, and Awakening is circa 2610 in that calendar! **Please go over there (titled "Forged Awakening") and cast votes by review on which path the story should follow, after reading the second "chapter" which contains some background information for those unfamiliar with Supreme Commander.**

Review Replies!

 **NerdLord2nd** : There is a reason this is Swarm Year 0, as in, one less than 1. The Swarm isn't quite ready to come into play yet, all we're getting for now is Overlord surveillance (cough tactical map cough), some telepathy, and the hunt for Essence. About your re-review (posted on Ch 6): It is hard to use a not-free-flexing segmented weapon (arms do not flex freely at the elbow) one is not practiced with, presuming you want to hit with considerably blunt force. It is however easy enough to throw such an object at relatively short range, even if hurling it really fast, if you're only looking to hit the target as opposed to doing anything more precise.

 **Gelgum Grem** : Odd, is it the case that most other authors when replying to reviews don't name the reviewers?

 **Makmix** : I am aware it seems out of character for Sumia, but, well, if you had to put up with and found yourself capable of handling a Pegasus like Egression (hopped up on Sully's creations) for two wars (at least 3 years)… you WILL grow confidence, like it or not. Also, she learnt the art of the Badass Boast from her fellow Shepherds in that time… or Grima dug up some book for her to reference and shoved a paper with the line in front of her and she found it suitable enough at the time to actually read off of (I might decide to pop your bubble by showing this fact after just because it sounds hilarious from my point of view).

 **Truemmerphantom** : "According to the Swarm collective memory, this effect from Overlords testing Sully's creations can be referred to as 'This is my flammenwerfer, it werfs flammen'… I suspect it will also inspire Miriel's family to invent rocketry for this planet."

 **Also Sprach Brooks** : Many authors feel less than wholly committed to their works. I am not one of them, for the most part.

 **Neph Champion** : Chrom/Robin/Grima is definitely going to be true. Sumia will be a satellite for both Robin and Grima, brought in to help troll the Ylissean nobility even more (and also because Cynthia after recruitment is hilarious, so they're looking forward to greeting a bundle of laughs eventually). Chrom just goes with it because he finds it amusing and, well, why not? If your lovers both want to bring another woman into the relationship, one you are good friends with, and you don't agree, you need to hand in your man card. After all, you would have failed even instincts, and if you don't even have instincts… what do you have? NOTHING!

 **REVIEW! REQUESTS IN REVIEWS WELCOME!**


	9. Inner Demons

A/N: **The shortage of reviews for Chapter 8 within a reasonable timeframe was most disappointing.**

If you cannot figure out after this chapter that several plot events are hopelessly screwed (e.g. assassination attempt, Emmeryn being captured, etc.), I can't help you. To skip mentions of tentacle porn, please skip the first thousand or so words.

* * *

Chapter 9: Inner Demons

 _September 28, Swarm Year 0_

"You must be really repressed." Chrom observed of Sully, and of the fact that mixing a Lethal Chef and an insane (and insanely hot) Fell Dragon in a human form was a Bad Idea… or very good, as his other head was shouting.

"In a sense. How am I supposed to get good enough to follow the family legacy if I can't practice?" Sully said, pointedly avoiding the alternate interpretation. Sure, Sully wasn't exactly fond of Plegians, but she wasn't stupid enough to realize why the Plegians might have targeted her brothers. If her cooking over the years had been any indication, then given her brothers' involvement in the war… if the Plegians had let them be then that would have been far, far more disturbing. At the root of her current diplomatic speech was how pissing off an ancient dragon god wasn't a good idea, even if she was a LOT nicer than the stories indicated.

"Be glad we're letting you practice." Basilio said gruffly. "I'm pretty sure Emmeryn has regulations against you, right?"

"Not as much as you might think, otherwise Egression over there wouldn't have the rainbow trail." Sully motioned over at where Sumia was trying and for now succeeding in getting her Pegasus to not eat the writhing mass of noodles.

"Okay, it was good earlier, but I've had enough release already, can you call off your creation?" The red-haired merchant they'd helped out, who currently entangled in said food commented loudly. "It's also getting kind of chilly by now." She went back panting right after.

"I'm not about to piss off my… friend… over something relatively minor… we'll get you out as soon as we can figure out a way to do so without destroying the thing, unless you actually start showing signs of hypothermia." Chrom yelled.

"And I bet your boner just at the sound of her has nothing to do with it." Anna grumbled.

"Guess why I agreed to try to create a tentacle monster." Sully said, grumbling over the noises coming from within the mass which Grima had jumped into with a gleeful squeal after throwing her clothes off.

"She did mention something about nymphomania, and since she isn't exactly close enough to Chrom yet to seduce him…" Robin grimaced as the woman who looked so much like her moaned louder than usual around the tentacle in her mouth. "I can't believe she came up with a way to deal with it that's even more awkward than us walking on her masturbating."

"Ha… Hah… aw is Robin upset that she's more repressed than me instead of openly being a sex addict?" Grima grinned at her after pulling a bundle of rather abnormally thick noodles from her mouth, most of her body thankfully hidden under the writhing mass of noodles, much as Anna was mostly hidden.

"I swear, I'm so invisible even the tentacle monster doesn't notice me." Kellam joked almost hysterically from where he dared not move once the mass of very animated noodles overtook his position without grabbing him.

"Shh, be very quiet and still, Kellam, unless you want to study how it feels to have noodles slither up the other end of your digestive tract and… HNGH! Knot together at intervals before sloshing in and out… Oh, don't worry, I can scour my body structure with my dark magic, so it's not filthy or any—" She suddenly clammed up on the subject as she realized she was almost defeating the purpose of pulling this outbreak of nymphomania in the middle of the Feroxi countryside. It was intended to start Chrom on the path of seeing her as a perverse madwoman instead of the generally friendly person she actually was—barring instinctive allergies toward Naga's chosen, particularly in conjunction with a drawn and dangerously close Falchion.

Grima had realized the need for this rather pointless display—other than feeling awesome and giving Sully some practice working family magic—when she realized she was hanging out with this version of Chrom like she used to with her Chrom. The worst thing was that he was about as nice and responsive as her Chrom to her flirtations… other than being even more easily embarrassed. Given she was displacing this Robin from hanging out with him maybe she was getting in the way. So she should start casting herself in the role of the crazy friend (too crazy to stick one's dick in), even if she would really love to ambush Chrom one night and drag him into her tent to show him the level of good times that could be had with a demigod.

 _AAAHHHHH! BAD THOUGHTS! I MUST KEEP HIM AT ARM'S LENGTH OR FURTHER! Uh, my sick mind, do you not remember what we did when we, ah, tested how far we can stretch at maximum and managed to shove his whole leg in there before we realized we were cheating with magic, and went back to having a maximum stretch of fist—AHHHHHH MORE BAD THOUGHTS, STOP!_ Let it never be said that being sensory-deprived and curious as to the pleasure derived from reproduction by living organisms didn't tend to lead a dragon god/demigod down the path of utter madness. Oh, and nymphomania, can't forget that aspect of the whole thing…

* * *

Watching Robin and Grima feasting left most of the party either incredibly disturbed and looking the other way, or staring avidly while being somewhat aroused by the sight of two statuesque beauties, who looked very much like sisters, chowing down on raw human meat. Anyhow, after Basilio was scarred for life by the sight, the Khans left the group gallivanting around the Ferox countryside for a while making sure the bandits were dead for good (a la omnomnom) before marching back toward Ylisstol.

Kellam was definitely one of the ones that didn't like the two as much as most of the others, mostly because he somehow still hadn't quite gotten the smell of demonic noodles out of his armour. Even though Sully had shooed them away from him and Grima had used Fell Magic to draw them toward herself, he swore sometimes that at night he could hear his armor make sounds… and was jumpy whenever he felt anything soft and wet touch him. It seemed he hadn't forgotten an unfortunate incident involving his innate invisibility coupled with someone trying to plant a flagpole on a training field once when he was passed out from exhaustion.

That event was why he'd specialized as a Knight instead of some other combatant class such as an axe-wielder. Friendly fire up the ass by any type of long wooden shaft would hopefully be less likely if he was so visible, and having a big shield and heavy armour helped him feel better about his chances of warding off damage.

In other news, Kellam now no longer had an appetite for noodles in general, though he'd still eat them if there wasn't a good alternative… Stahl helped him make sure there weren't, in Kellam's efforts to train his fortitude much as Grima was chasing "Freddy Bear" as she was calling him now around with a bandit arm yelling about how it was the gamiest of meats. "…You do realize hunting intelligent life is the most dangerous game, and thus most thrilling to the deranged?"

"I THINK THE KEYWORD THERE IS 'DERANGED'!" On the other hand, there was something to be said about Frederick's dutifulness, as he seemed to notice his mare was getting tired after the nth lap around the marching column, so was now running around on foot. He had only stopped carrying his mare while he ran because she got annoyed after about five steps and started vocalizing it.

Kellam sighed, it seemed he was just another lunatic in a band of lunatics…

…It was, however, a considerably better life than having to dodge wagons, oxen, and ploughs back on the farm because they notice him.

* * *

 _Ylisstol, October 12, Swarm Year 0_

"We have budget problems _again_?" Emmeryn's voice remained steady, but the nobles at the table all flinched at the questioning tone in the last word.

"Yes, your Grace, the funds required to raise an army are considerable, and the Treasury needs to keep a safe reserve of funds, while we also cannot lend much from the banks due to need for reserves…" The Hierarch, who had been the previous Chancellor before he retired, answered. They had been going over the next year's budget requirements, and the Chancellor had mentioned how they were already running out of this year's budget due to the recent militia raising orders, to be carried out as soon as the harvests concluded, with training and drills over the winter so that the spring would not see unplanned fields lie fallow.

At least, come spring, the militia would be drilled enough to defend their settlements from the occasional roving groups of Risen, as it seemed Risen weren't interested in crops. Ylisse's economy was still not strong enough to support large armies hunting those things, but with some of this generation's warriors, well, an army was not required to hunt the bands. To defend against them on the other hand would require borrowing Feroxi troops for the winter. The Feroxi also benefitted, since their lands weren't as arable as Ylisse's good farmlands, and so housing and feeding their troops for a winter was good for their economy too.

"Very well, then. I will go out on the night of the fifteenth and bring in the dough again." They were about to proceed onto other matters, in a moment of morose silence over what that meant, when Phila interrupted.

"Milady! A messenger just reported sighting the Shepherds, plus a few new faces, approaching the North Gates." The Pegasus Commander stated.

"That is good news! New recruits means they most likely have secured Feroxi aid against the Risen! Hierarch, Chancellor, see to it that word is spread, and collect the fees as is traditional."

"What fees?" Chrom's voice asked from above them, though it seemed unusually high and strained.

Emmeryn, like almost everyone else in the room (e.g. except the most paranoid, who looked down instead) looked up.

…And up…

…And kept looking up…

…

"…Chrom, did you try hijacking Sumia's Pegasus _again_?"

* * *

 _A little earlier…_

"I thought if you had a thing for him you should get him used to your monstrous mount of morbidity?" Lissa said, waving her arms over her head while

"And that would help her HOW?" Grima wasn't really a fan of the bookish, clumsy woman since she had liked Chrom in the beginning at least in the timelines she was familiar with. However, she still acknowledged that the young lady was pretty cutesy in her own way and, other than the forbidden fruit of selfcest (Robin), probably Grima's number one choice if she wanted to try bedding a woman.

This Sumia was a bit different from the one she'd known in her birth timeline though. The Pegasus had been the first (and most obvious) clue. Then there had been the tendency to leave head-shaped or face-shaped craters (at least) whenever she face-planted, as opposed to neither side yielding in the impacts. The usually trying to stay away from these petty conflicts part remained similar enough tough, so Sumia herself was standing behind the two imposing white-haired women who were glaring Lissa down.

"I do not believe trapping Chrom, then tying him to Egression, was the best way to acclimate him to Pegasus riding." Robin said, trying to sound diplomatic.

* * *

 _Ylisstol, October 12, Swarm Year 0_

It took until the Shepherds actually reached the castle for Chrom to be successfully removed from the chandelier. Phila's Pegasus, one of the only ones known to pull anything close to Egression's stunts, needed tips (if the whinnying and snorting was any indication) from the crazier Pegasus to figure out exactly how she'd pulled it off. Fortunately the engineers who'd installed the lighting fixture had been considerate enough to incorporate very large weight tolerances.

Chrom had a phobia of Egression ever since the last time he'd tried to borrow the mount, not that any times when Sumia had to carry him around were much better. Hence the necessity of Lissa trapping him and then forcing him onboard. In exchange for the rather less than voluntary boarding, Egression had somehow untied him as well as woven his limbs into the chandelier so that he was at no risk of falling before leaving. Chrom decided it wouldn't do for the people in the room to startle the mount, so had stayed quiet.

How the Pegasus with a thousand-foot rainbow trail managed to sneak in the only open doors of the throne room with no one noticing, he would never quite figure out. That was, until Emmeryn would finally explain to him, after the meeting ended and he asked, that the guards were so used to their utter madness that they'd let the Pegasus in question be as it passed, carrying the Prince, for fear of making it drop him. They also happened to recognize the Pegasus in question due to a brief pulse of the trail as a signature.

Chrom learnt something very interesting that day though. Apparently the Treasury, whenever it encountered difficulties, turned to his sister's fundraising skills. He was interested in what those skills were…

But first, there was the not so minor issue of introducing their newest travelling buddies. Lon'qu and Anna had gone over without a hitch, but it seemed everyone had forgotten Kellam again, or weren't noticing him. Chrom swore he heard some nobleman ask his wife (in this case a countess from a neighbouring duchy, here representing her mother because she was sick) "Why's the Exalt shaking hands with empty air?" Apparently it took great skill or other types of potential to spot the stealthy man.

Then there was the matter of asking all the nobles to leave for their last guest. Things got very awkward very quickly, starting right after Chrom's grand gesture and "This is our newest friend, Grima, the genuine article, come here from another timeline and consuming her counterpart here upon arrival. Has a funny obsession with me, keeping me alive from very close distances, but also keeping her distance so she doesn't get an allergic reaction and accidentally kill me like she did in the timeline she came from." Chrom was exceedingly bad at long introductions, which he gave only when he felt they were needed.

"I cannot fathom the amount of consternation the Plegians would feel, well, the Grimleal specifically, if they knew their god was sitting down for a friendly dinner with the Exalt in Ylisstol." Emmeryn said, working to make things less awkward as was her habit.

"A lot less funny than the Grimleal's reaction would have been if the pointy dragon-spanker hadn't caused me to have an allergic instinctive reaction in the timeline I came from." Grima grimaced at that. "Having their god reveal herself to them while being the queen of Ylisse would have been even more of a hoot. And their accusations could just be passed off as Plegian propaganda trying to damage the royal family… though anyone who ever changed Lucina's clothes would know the accusations were very true given how huge her Mark was compared to mine."

"Well, I thought holding the world ransom so that you could try to reverse Chrom's death, or failing that escape to somewhere else, was romantic." Lissa contributed.

"So the next princess was named Lucina in your home timeline?" Emmeryn said, as placid as usual. "A good name. I agree, it would have been hilarious to see their reactions to know their god had not only sided with the Ylisseans but become their queen, and it would have been perfectly deniable due to sounding too insane." _Much like some of the things I do to raise funds for the Treasury…_

"Indeed."

"A toast then to overwhelming hilarity, and of course unity between faiths." Emmeryn kept smiling benevolently until everyone was in the midst of drinking "So will my brother be warming your bed in the near future, lady Grima?" The tablecloth had to be washed afterward. Also, Lissa's teacher in the ways of trolling/pranking was shown to the world… or at least part thereof. Emmeryn didn't give a wooden coin about the implications that she'd died or been crippled beyond ruler-ship in Grima's home timeline. She would surely have mentioned something if that counterpart of her could do half the things she did on a regular basis.

* * *

"After the meeting, in the evening, after her work hours were over, Phila visited Chrom's room."

There was a long pause. Frederick yawned at the length of the pause, pointing out to Lissa's narrative that it wasn't as suspenseful as the princess would likely have wanted.

"…That didn't sound quite right, rewind." Lissa cleared her throat "Phila visited Chrom and spoke to him about something important, something about Emmeryn's safety."

The door creaked open, revealing Chrom and Phila "Shepherds, we have a problem."

* * *

 _Ylisstol, evening of October 15, SY 0_

A cloaked shadow exited the Exalt's room, half an hour after dinner had concluded. It stalked quickly up the corridor to the nearest window that opened to sufficient sizes, because it would be quite rude to exit via a hole in the castle wall. The shadow pulled off her usual headdress, revealing it to have been attached to a staff that ran down further, to the end of her ribcage in length. She straddled the seemingly absurdly small and delicate-looking contraption, lined herself up with the open window… and took off, holding her usual crescent moon staff in the other hand not holding the mount.

Emmeryn grabbed the first hand axe out of the air and stashed it in the Caravan Pocket of her robes, then shot a bolt at him from her free staff, striking him off his wyvern before he could do anything to dodge. The creature, smarter than its rider had been, flew off in a great hurry the moment it was free of its burden. The second and third axes thrown at her, however, Emmeryn caught and slung back at a leisurely pace after taking the, ah, "donations" attached. The would-be assassins caught the axes, saluted, and flew away.

There was something to be said when your superiors insisted you try to assassinate the Exalt every time she went out to shake down the Underworld for funds. These Plegians had been notified by public notices posted on the Exalt's orders that any long-ranged attempts that came with at least ten gold coins would see the weapons returned without harm to owner, unless bowmen were dumb enough to move back into the path of arrows being returned butt-first. Any attempts that didn't attach payment would be summarily terminated, and lower payments meant more pain on return. Any short-ranged attempts paying at least twenty gold coins would only see the would-be assassin badly beaten, paralyzed for a few hours, until the Exalt finished her business on the town, and cursed. Lower payments would result in severe injury, and higher payments meant no injuries if it got up to a hundred gold coins.

Considering the most common result of only paying twenty gold coins was the feeling of having one's testicles encountering a meat grinder for roughly three days straight, attacks in person typically paid the full hundred coins if they were good enough to be serious attempts. And the Plegians weren't quite dumb enough to not send serious attempts. Then again, given the track record of attempts on Emmeryn's life…

The number of arrows flying toward her… which equalled the number flying right back at the shooters, with a few noobs getting theirs thrown back much faster and head-first… should explain said track record. The Plegians kept paying their people to try because they thought surely she'd slip up sooner or later…

The Shepards watched, too stunned to move, while Phila trundled along after Emmeryn cleaning up the messes of noob assassins too dumb to listen to their more experienced betters.

"How many is that so far?" Robin asked, very disturbed, while Emmeryn drew in the donations for this particular evening above them, waiting until there was no more arrow fire from below.

"Income is over 8000 and rising." Phila said, while stripping off the outfit of a Sniper who seemed to instantly have had all the life sucked out of him by magic… "Huh, this guy had pretty decent armor… over 9000 then. Hey, you there, be sure to play nice until next time, you got me?"

The bowman trying to sneak away squeaked and jumped about three feet in the air at spotting the people following behind Phila "Yes, Knight Commander!" He scurried off.

"Remarkably obedient for an assassin." Frederick noted, raising an eyebrow at Phila as she continued stripping the corpse, before throwing it and the gear alike onto the wagon that she was leading around.

"They're too scared of what happens if they don't play nice. Back when this tradition was just getting started, one of them raped a girl in the slums and talked about it to his buddies. The next fundraising night after that incident, Emmeryn's first move that night was to dive for the ground. his buddies each received a piece of flesh on their arrows or weapons that night, and when they found him, well, she'd cut his genitals off and hung him hog-tied outside the Arena, healed enough to not bleed to death. None of them dared take him down or even touch him. Then on the return trip everyone that fired at her got a piece of skin, and they saw his body—they could tell it was him because of the face that was still attached—and his skinned body was hung behind Emmeryn's flying staff, trailing in the wind. The man was still alive when they arrived at the castle, and Emmeryn regrew his skin, but not his genitals, for him, and returned him to his buddies with instructions to come back again with donations next time she went out to the Arena."

Lissa thought it all sounded so very cool, and said so, while Stahl looked almost as green as his armor.

"What about your own safety, Phila?" Sumia asked, since they had bonded a bit more when they were both grounded for a while.

"The last guy to try to attack me ended up getting skewered a few times by me before Emm noticed and, uh, dealt with him. He couldn't die fast enough from my efforts to be merciful since I had to hit him center mass, he was moving his head around too fast. So… she got him. The story of what happened to him has been passed down among the generous money donors ever since then."

"So where does Emm go after collecting these… donations?"

"The reason I spoke to you about this now of all times was because with a dragon god on our side we might actually have enough firepower to persuade her to end this risky habit. The Plegians are right, surely she'll slip up sooner or later… she goes to the arena."

"The matches on the fifteenth and the thirtieth?" Frederick pressed. "Aren't they a bit… shadier than normal?"

"Yes, hence why Emmeryn can attend them. You'd be surprised how much people would be willing to pay to fight the Exalt." Phila grimaced. She didn't like it, but Emmeryn's combative abilities had helped fund the reconstruction of Ylisse after the last war. There was basically a never-ending stream of Plegians ready to throw their gold, and their lives for that matter, at the Exalt. Over the years those dying trying too hard had lessened in number, but the gold still came flooding in whenever Emmeryn posted announcements that she would be participating in the matches. "It is also good stress relief."

Grima turned around to look the great Knight behind her in the eye. Frederick had resigned himself to the idea that if she wanted to harm them she could do so easily, but for Phila's mental comfort still walked behind the woman. However, he wasn't watching her, because the way she walked, when relaxed, was annoyingly seductive. "Frederick, please hurry up and seduce Emmeryn, as soon as possible. This method of stress relief is more disturbing than thinking back on when I screwed Chrom _after_ I turned his remains into a Risen."

Phila stared at her for a moment while pulling another corpse's pants off "That _is_ disturbing… and disturbingly hot too now that I think about it. It's awfully romantic, isn't it?"

"You taught Cordelia her romance obsession?" Sumia asked.

Phila shrugged, while pulling coins out from under the soles of a man's boots. "That girl picks things up a bit TOO quickly. I just thought that maybe she could use a bit of a break from work, and next thing you know she's read half the castle library's romance genre books. But to love him so much that you couldn't let go of him even in death… it is as romantic as it is horrible."

"You'd think they'd get tired of the topic of you marrying my counterpart from your timeline at some point." Chrom commented to Grima, who smiled at him, and moved to walk a step further away. Chrom chuckled, before closing the distance and throwing an arm around her shoulders "Ah, let them talk. I meant that it is funny how they still talk about it, not that you had to feel even more awkward around me. I'm not as oblivious as some people might think."

There was a low snort from Frederick, and Robin prodded him "You saw Grima stealing Chrom's dirty laundry too?"

"I saw her sneaking into his tent and barely restrict herself from giving him oral." Frederick lied with a straight face.

Robin snorted in laughter at that idea.

"So, help me clean up all the way to the arena, then we might be able to catch a few of Her Grace's matches if there are enough who want to try their luck today."

* * *

"A young trainee from one of the noble houses, seeking to measure his skill." Emmeryn observed, breathing deeply, "So be it." She detached her headdress from the staff it was secured to, and held it by the central joint between the two main prongs, then charged up a soft, humming red blade between the prongs from a highly derived variant of the basic Fire tome. It was less likely to leave scars than Wind or defeat him through his weapon like Thunder. "Please make the first move."

It was over in under a minute, and Emmeryn pulled her Crescent Staff off her back, healing the battered, cowering lad with merely a thought and a spark of the cheap Heal Orb installed within the Crescent. "Next match?" Some imbecile had the audacity to throw a knife at her, which she caught casually and flung back in the same direction hilt-first, as they'd attached an appropriate amount of payment to not get the bladed end, not even to remove an ear or cut into their lower jaw or something. "As I said, next opponent please?" the crowd roared its approval of their Exalt. Even the Plegians in the crowd cheered. Most of them had been stationed here for a while, and other than token efforts twice a month or so to attack her were beyond impressed with her fighting ability

…

"Plegian, I see? That beard and typical Berserker outfit, with the cape and rank marks I can see… General Mustafa? I did not expect to see anyone of such rank out here in the Arena."

"Well, I annoyed the King in the last generals' conference, so he insists I come fight you in the Underworld Arena" for that was the name of the place "to show me how bloodthirsty you actually are. He also said that if I happened to kill or badly wound you then he could be sure I'd get eaten alive by the crowd. So, either I get humiliated and learn a hard lesson or I die." Gangrel wasn't an idiot, he knew Mustafa was one of his most reliable generals, hence he didn't kill the man outright. "Let's have a good match, aye?" He pulled out a Killer Axe for his weapon of choice in this battle.

"Certainly… so what would you prefer to cross weapons with? Valflame or Goetia?" Emmeryn had pulled the Crescent Staff off her back again.

Mustafa looked taken aback "Uh, lady, I don't think a lance-type weapon is a good idea against an axe. I don't actually wish to hurt you, you see?"

"For two great warriors to fight each other, it is mere obligation to do what each thinks is best. Please add another axe to the fight, or this will be too quick." Emmeryn said "Why not both, I guess." Her staff hand began to ripple with purple and black tendrils of energy while her other hand, still holding the headdress, began to power up the blade further from a contained version of the basic dull red Fire tome upward toward what she'd promised.

"Since when could Emm use dark magic?" Lissa asked in the crowd.

"I traded my father for my kingdom when I last used this spell. And now, with all the fire and fury this old madwoman can bring to bear, I hunt. I hunt the Soul Drinker. I hunt the Gold." Emmeryn announced as the metal of her staff stopped shining its usual gold as if it bled colour into blackness, the crescent head lighting up with purple wisps coming off it.

"I get the feeling this will hurt." Mustafa, who had grabbed a Brave Axe to help parry her channelled Valflame, complained. Then the gong started the fight, which for the first two minutes was extremely boring as the two waited for the other to move. Then Mustafa decided that he might as well make the first move.

There were very good reasons Emmeryn was perfectly comfortable in walking around in public in Ylisstol with minimal escorts visiting shops and the slums alike. The first such reason was herself. The second such reason was that an assassin being approached by her in daylight was more likely to shit himself and run than even think to try anything else. These two were usually good enough for most people to get the point.

* * *

A/N: I think I just utterly derailed almost the whole plot of Awakening (Mustafa will be fine, don't worry). Consult Emmeryn's Official Art for her "Crescent Staff" as I call it.

REVIEW REPLIES!

 **Neph Champion** : Emm will have supports with them here, though this Emmeryn is a little… _off_.


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